The Encore
by Enid Earthling
Summary: POST DEFENDERS. Jessica Jones thinks Matt Murdock is dead. His return to New York will put into motion a fight for the neighbourhoods they live in, the people they love, and the beginnings of a relationship that's equal parts dark and beautiful. She's wit and strength. He's wisdom and discipline. Together they will work to save the city again and each other. This is their encore.
1. Act One

The truth was Jessica Jones hadn't slept in two years. Not really. Not without pain and not without nightmares. They played on repeat.

Reva flying through the air. Trish screaming. Luke turning his back on her. Kilgrave's body at her feet. Matt Murdock.

Those memories spilled from her mind coating her nearly naked body in cold sweats night after night. Alcohol constantly seeped from her pores.

There was a time the whiskey calmed her demons, periodically drowning them into silence.

That time was over. The demons now bobbed on the surface. They had learned how to swim. But Jessica feared what a life without the bottle would look like. She feared one day her demons would fly.

Three months after the collapse of Midland Circle, following another series of nightmares she swung her pale legs over the side of her mattress and grabbed a half full bottle of Kentucky Bourbon from her feet.

Her throat burned as golden liquid flooded her mouth. She let out a groan and finished the bottle before staggering to the kitchen for another one.

 _Fucking nightmares_ , she thought. _Fucking Kilgrave. Fucking Hand. Fucking Matt._

Leaning into her open fridge, cracking the top off a bottle of Cutty Sark, Jessica let the last thought linger.

 _Matt._

She couldn't explain why his death was wreaking so much havoc on her mind. She had barely known him.

 _Matt._

A blind lawyer. A vigilante. A costume enthusiast with a penchant for her favourite scarf. A man capable of unnerving her, gutting her like no one else could… at least no one without the aid of mind control. And yet even as his heightened senses and his unwavering confidence set shivers through her otherwise solid core, Matt Murdock made her feel safe.

What was that about?

 _Fucking Matt._

Before she knew it the bottle was empty, like all the bottles that littered her apartment. Her stash was dry.

Closing the fridge with too much force, the contents violently rattling, Jessica grabbed her leather coat and slipped it over a dirty white Henley. It was time for another booze run. It was time to take a walk on the streets she had once begrudgingly decided to protect.

A grey scarf hung over the back of her desk chair. _That_ grey scarf. She reached for it, but stopped short. She hadn't worn it since the last time she wore it. The last time she saw him.

Standing, barely, she stared at her cashmere knockoff and closed her eyes. She wondered if her nose had been trained like Matt's whether or not she'd be able to smell him on the scarf; smell the coffee on his breath the day they first stormed Midland Circle, smell the skin cells that must have flaked off during the fight, smell his virtue and goodness and fucking self-sacrifice. She wondered it often. She was tempted to sleep with the damn thing on nights that were too cold, but somehow she knew she wasn't good enough to slip into his mask.

A knock on the door forced her eyes open.

"It's too early and I'm all out of booze, so whoever it is better be ready for a fist to the face," she growled as she flung the door open.

"I think I can take it," Luke Cage replied. He stood in her doorway, a smirk on his face, his broad shoulders blocking the flickering light from the hallway.

Jessica sighed. "I thought you were with Claire now. I mean, I'm flattered but-"

"Cute Jess, but that's not why I'm here and you know it."

"As you can tell by my lack of casework," Jessica waved her hand to the empty desk behind her, "And my inebriated state, I don't know much lately." She choked out a laugh.

"I thought you were working again," he said sympathetically.

"I guess you thought wrong," she replied impatiently.

"Jessica…" he began, but she quickly cut him off.

"Don't pity me Luke. We've come too far for shit like that."

Luke moved to enter her apartment.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's happening here? I didn't say you could come in."

"I have something important to talk about," Luke told her and she could tell he meant it.

She sighed. "Fine. Shoot. Then I have to grab another drink."

"Without your pants?"

Jessica looked down at her bare legs, her feet already in those familiar boots. Was she so drunk she was ready to leave without a pair of well worn jeans? Or was she so sad she couldn't be bothered to care?

"Yeah, Luke, without my pants," she sarcastically bit back. "Now what's so important you're at my door at 2 a.m.?"

"It's 5 a.m., Jess. That there is the sun," he said pointing to her grime covered window.

Jessica squinted as she watched the sun begin it's quiet rise through her apartment.

"And Matt Murdock is alive."

It felt like slow motion, like what she assumed everything had felt like for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen as he weaved around bad guys, punching and kicking his way into martyrdom.

"What?"

Luke stepped into the room as Jessica stumbled back. "I know this is a lot, it's a lot for all of us, but-"

With quick precision, quicker than the whiskey should have allowed, Jessica pushed Luke against the wall. It cracked under his steel weight.

"Murdock is alive!" she exclaimed. "He's alive and you started with pity over my lack of work and jokes about my pants? Fuck Luke."

As he moved to touch her she pushed him against the wall once more.

"Don't move. I'm pissed and I don't want you to move."

"Okay," he replied.

"Or talk. Don't move or talk." Her voice was cracking, faltering under the weight of her breath. "I'm going to find jeans and then you're taking me to him."

Luke nodded, careful not to get on her bad side.

In her bedroom, alone, Jessica felt her chest tighten. Panic washed over her. She had to remind herself how to breathe.

In and out. In and out. Matt is alive. He's alive.

In and out.

Where had he been? How was he? Who found him?

In and out.

Was Elektra alive too? Were they together? Did that matter?

In and out.

"Jessica?" Luke called to her. "We need to go. I don't want anyone following us, okay."

She didn't know what was happening, but she was smart enough to know it should happen before the sun fully rose lighting their every move.

"Yeah, I'm coming. And on the way you're going to tell me everything."

In and out.

"And I mean everything."


	2. Act Two

"Matt!" Danny exclaimed with joy as he entered Claire Temple's apartment, finding Matt sitting on the nurse's couch.

Luke and Jessica had stopped on the way, sharing the good news of Matt Murdock's seemingly miraculous resurrection with Danny. Suddenly the old gang was back together again.

But Jessica had flinched at the use of the word resurrection. People coming back from the dead never seemed to work out for anyone.

Luke hadn't told her much on the ride over. He didn't seem to know much. The previous night Matt had appeared at Claire's door, wearing a suit and tie, like nothing had happened. Luke told her he seemed fine, Matt seemed in control. Luke told her Matt might have quashed his demons once and for all.

But Jessica knew that was crap. No one, not even the best man she'd ever met, could uproot demons as big as his.

Danny rushed to Matt's side, and as he stood, Jessica noticed he had a new cane in his hand, a new pair of red glasses covering his unseeing eyes.

As he and Danny hugged, Jessica took him in. He was limping and sore. His left leg heavy, his right hand still bandaged months after his "death." His head was cocked to one side like an animal trying to regain his equilibrium. She wondered if the collapse of Midland Circle had crushed more than his bones.

"Good to see you again," Danny said.

"Good to be seen," Matt replied. Jessica noticed his voice was coarser than before. Or maybe it was her skewed perception, caused by all the alcohol swirling in her veins.

Claire stood to join them. She had been seated next to Matt. They had looked deep in conversation when the fractured remnants of the team had arrived.

"I think maybe I should give you all a minute and go pack our things," Claire said.

"Why are you packing?" Danny asked.

Claire sheepishly smiled, squeezing Matt's good hand before leaving for the other room.

Danny turned to Luke. "Why are you packing?"

Before Luke could reply, Matt began, the familiar even tone of his voice returning. "I've asked them to. And now I need to ask you both the same. Colleen as well."

"What?" Danny questioned.

Luke sighed and shook his head. "Hear him out Danny. I don't like it, but I think we might have to take a pass on this fight."

Jessica knew Luke hadn't told her the whole story. She could smell the hypocrisy of Matt's crisp navy suit from across the room. Even without any heightened senses she knew he was oozing guilt.

"What fight? I don't understand," Danny replied.

Matt placed his hand on his friend's shoulder. "The people who found me, who saved me, they didn't do a very good job of keeping my secrets safe. There are people coming who I think know about me and the Daredevil. I don't want anyone associated with me to get hurt."

"Who are they?" Danny asked.

"The less you know the better," Matt told him, as the frantic pace of Claire's packing filtered into the living room.

"Claire and I are thinking of going upstate for a day or two," Luke explained.

"I don't know," Danny began. "We just got you back, Matt."

Matt smiled. "I know, Danny. And from what Claire told me you've been protecting the city just as I asked. But right now I need to know that you're all safe and-"

"Is anyone else having deja vu?" Jessica snorted, her arms defiantly crossed.

"Jessica, I-" Matt began, but she ignored him.

"No, no, really. Because this seems pretty damn familiar, doesn't it? Except this time you want to head upstate, Luke? And Danny, what the hell? You barely flinched when they suggested you sit out this fight. A fight, I might add that we really know nothing about."

"Jess, if Matt thinks we should-" Danny interjected, but Jessica was just getting started.

"Fuck Matt!" she spat out. "We just fought The Hand. We saved the city by hiding our friends, by hiding ourselves. And all that time the good counselor here was lying to us."

"Not the whole time," Matt shyly offered.

"What was that, Murdock? Your stand is that you weren't lying to us the whole time? Well fuck, you must be a damn good lawyer with a defense like that." Jessica felt the her breathing quicken. She knew Matt felt it too. "You died. You stayed down there on purpose and you died and now in less than two minutes you have these idiots convinced to do it all over again, only this time on your terms? Has everyone lost their damn minds?"

Matt moved towards her and she recoiled. It startled him. Her whole aura startled him. The quickened breath, the racing heart, the wild gestures and pacing feet. He couldn't get a hold of her image in his mind. He didn't understand.

"I will explain everything. I won't lie to you guys, not ever again. But I need to explain it somewhere else."

He inched closer to her slowly, closing the cavernous divide.

"Jessica, I know you must feel confused and hurt and-"

"Don't tell me how I feel, Murdock. That's not a heightened sense you're ever going to master."

Matt moved away from her, sensing anger like fire. She was burning out of control.

"You want Luke and Claire to just say goodbye to this place? For how long? Long enough to destroy the new clinic Claire set up? Or just long enough to send the kids Luke is mentoring back into the arms of the gangs starting up again; the ones filling a void left by the Daredevil?"

Luke was surprised. Jessica had been working a case. She had been keeping tabs on them.

"And what about Danny?" She asked Matt. "He took up your mantle, he did what you asked and spread his stupid chi or whatever all over the city."

"And you?" Matt asked.

"You guys do what you want. Hide or run or keeping hugging it out. But I'm done."

Jessica turned to leave. She wasn't sure what made her so mad. Was it that Matt wanted them all to repeat the mistakes of the past? Or was it that he wasn't nearly as injured as she thought he'd be? Or that he came to Claire first?

She had longed to have one of her nightmares turn into a dream worth having and now Matt Murdock was alive. But she had expected that if he were ever found he'd be in a coma far from danger and never on Claire's couch. He should have been in a nice, chaste coma.

Jessica felt a rush of whiskey jump up her throat. She was going to be sick. She reached out for support and found Matt's arm.

"I've got you," he said, but she jerked herself from his gentle grasp.

"No, you don't," she told him before storming out.


	3. Act Three

"I don't understand," Trish told her over the phone. "I thought this was what you wanted."

Jessica grumbled something incoherent as she fumbled with her newly acquired bottle, this time a nice heavy one. One she knew she would smash against her wall once the contents ran dry.

"Maybe you should have heard him out. I mean, he did survive something terrible, something life altering," Trish continued. "I think you know what that's like."

Jessica didn't want to hear the truth. Not yet. "Trish, I gotta go."

She clicked her cell phone off before Trish could protest.

 _What is wrong with me?_ She wondered for what must have been the hundredth time that day.

Immediately following her heavy footed flight from Claire's apartment Jessica had regretted it all. She had barely let him speak. She had steamrolled, like always. She had played defensive despite the fact that Matt was offering nothing but a helping hand. Or at least that's what he said.

 _Could he really be trusted?_ She wasn't sure. The not knowing was killing her.

Her cell phone rang. It was Trish again. Jessica swiped left to ignore.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Matt sat on the roof of Jessica's apartment building, crouched, his suit pants wrinkling with every shift of his position.

He knew he shouldn't have worn a suit. Why did he think slipping back into his old clothes would somehow mean slipping back into his old self? He wasn't the same.

Lying on his back in the company of those nuns, wounds covering his body, Matt hadn't been thinking about Elektra. He had been thinking about his team. Once he realized he was in danger, again, securing them had been his top priority. But it was bound to go sideways. Jessica Jones didn't like to be told what to do.

Should he have come home sooner, even though he was weak? Should he have gone to Jessica first? Would that have calmed her anger? Or should he have stayed away all together? Maybe staying away is what would keep them safe.

 _Dammit._ Everything he did was wrong. Everyone he loved was or would get hurt.

Jessica had been right. It was deja vu.

The only difference had been her. She was warm somehow, her body, her energy. She seemed to care about him more. Her heartbeat betrayed any indifference she may have wanted to maintain.

She had smelled of whiskey, wafting from her pores in waves, surrounding him in her sadness. And when he had taken her arm, even for just an instant, he had felt how rigid she was forcing herself to be. He thought she wanted him to hold her, but when she'd ripped away he wasn't sure what to think.

"Something tells me you're not here for the view," Jessica said, startling him. He was rarely startled.

"How did you do that?" he asked her, his back to her, still too ashamed to turn around.

"You couldn't hear me coming, could you?" she said, her voice rolling cheekily. He could tell she was more drunk than before and for a woman of Jessica's abilities true intoxication was a feat rarely achieved.

"No. I couldn't hear you."

"Why won't you look at me?" she asked him, her boots scraping across the rotted tar that covered the roof.

"I don't really look," he told her.

Jessica laughed. "Fuck that. You see more than most. You see me… when you want to."

He stood and turned to face her. "I'm sorry about today, about before. I came to explain everything. No more lies."

"Don't you want to know why you couldn't hear me?" she questioned, slowly walking towards him, towards the edge of the building.

Confused, Matt stayed silent, sensing her closeness. When she was only inches away he felt the rigidness return, but she leaned into his ear anyway. He knew she was tamping down her anger just to be near him.

"Tell me you want to know," she commanded.

"I want to know."

Whispering in his ear, Jessica said, "I can fly."

Laughing heartily, Matt knew she was more than drunk. She was drowning.

She pushed back from him and stepped to the edge. Matt grabbed her hand.

"Don't."

"You don't have to worry. I told you I can fly. Well, jump. Whatever. I'm a big girl, counselor. I'm alright."

She pulled her hand back, but he refused to let go.

"I'm ashamed of the choices I've made," he told her. "Please let me apologize."

"Which choices, Matt? The choice to stay and die for a woman who tried to kill us all, who killed your mentor? The choice to stay gone even after you were saved? Or how about the choice to get us all involved in some bullshit cat and mouse game… again?"

She was still standing on the edge. He was still holding her hand, keeping her in place.

"I don't understand why you're so angry, Jessica. I'm the one who died, not you."

"There's more than one way to die, Matt. And if you knew anything about me you'd know I've died before too."

They stood together in silence for far too long. His grip on her palm slowly became a curling of fingers, her smooth skin grazing his bruised hands. He could feel her pulse quicken and suddenly realized his was matching pace.

"Are you mad that I died or are you mad that I left you and the team?" As soon as the words escaped his lips he couldn't believe he had said it, but something about her made him feel raw and exposed.

"That's the same question, genius," she replied sarcastically.

"So there's only one answer," Matt slyly replied. His mouth curled into a smile.

"I'm mad you died. I'm mad you left _me_ … not the team."

Matt let go of her hand, surprised by her honesty.

"Did I already mention that I can fly?" she asked before jumping from the rooftop.

Matt felt the rush of her tight frame cut through the sky and land on the sidewalk below.

His pulse began to race out of control.


	4. Act Four

Matt found himself seated across from Jessica's desk, hunched over, head in hands. He was waiting for her. She'd jumped off the roof with nothing but the clothes on her back, and walked coldly into the setting sun. That was two hours ago.

He had wanted to follow, but he also knew she needed space. Lots and lots of space. And while he wanted to keep her safe, he also wanted to keep himself from getting punched and too much too soon seemed counterproductive to his goal.

Footsteps down the hall alerted him to someone's presence and he sat up. But Matt knew by their gait that it wasn't her.

"Can I help you?" Malcolm asked as he stepped inside the apartment, the floorboard creaking under his Converse.

"I'm waiting for Jessica Jones," Matt replied.

"Yeah, I figured. But you might be waiting a long time."

"And who are you?"

Malcolm chuckled. "I'm the only one of the two us with keys. I belong here, buddy. I think you better go."

"Look, I appreciate that you're her friend or whatever, but I'm not leaving until I talk to her."

Matt looked up at Malcolm, his eyes unresponsive under the glasses sliding down his nose. Suddenly, Malcolm knew exactly who was waiting for her Jessica exactly why she fled.

"You're the guy."

"The guy?" Matt asked.

"The guy who died," Malcolm told him matter of factly.

 _Shit._

Matt immediately stiffened. What had Jessica told this guy? Was he really a friend? Maybe a partner? A lover? The last thought made him shake, but he wasn't exactly sure why.

What could the sneaker wearing stranger know? Not that he was Daredevil. Jessica would never divulge that secret. She was too good to hurt him like that. But she had figured it out within a day of meeting him and if the man standing before him was a PI too maybe he figured it out as well.

Matt stood, jerking upward as the chair scraped back on the hardwood floor. The man in the sneakers was startled, but he didn't leave.

Matt knew he cared for Jessica. He could smell her on him.

 _Shit._

"Are you calculating the odds?" Malcolm asked him.

"What?" Matt questioned incredulously.

"I've been with Jessica long enough to know what thinking about the pros and cons looks like. Mostly because she never does it, so when I see it in you it stands out."

Matt let out a soft chuckle. This guy was no PI, but he and Jessica definitely knew one another. The stranger wasn't lying.

"Been with her?" Matt asked, feeling his fist clench.

"Yeah. We work together. She works the case and I take the notes or patch up the walls after a fight or patch her up after a fight. Depends really."

Matt relaxed.

"You're turn," Malcolm continued. "Who are you?"

Matt felt behind him for the discarded chair and slide it beneath him once again. "Like you said, I'm the guy."

"I'm going to need more than that if you plan on staying here."

Matt sighed. "Let's just say I'm a client."

"Oh," Malcolm laughed. He grabbed a pad and pen from the kitchen table and walked behind Jessica's desk, sitting in the chair Matt assumed was reserved for her. Getting comfortable, he tossed the scarf from the back of the chair, the one that was crumpling into his back, onto the desk before Matt. Even without sight, Matt immediately recognized it and smiled.

"Well I take the notes, so tell me why you need her services."

Malcolm flipped the notebook open, pen poised to write

"This is cute and all, but I just-"

"Talk or leave," Malcolm told him and Matt knew he was serious. He felt the air vibrate around him when he walked. He could sense the man in the sneakers was no fighter. But he was just as sure he wouldn't let up. Perhaps he instead planned to annoy Matt into submission.

 _Shit. It was working._

"Fine. I came to Jessica because I have a friend who-"

"Man or woman?" Malcolm interjected.

"My friend? She's a woman. And she basically… flew away."

"Flew or jumped really high."

Matt smiled again. He was starting to like this stranger. "The latter."

Matt could hear a flurry of swishes, the pen scribbling on back and forth on the paper. The stranger wasn't writing words. He was doodling.

"Anyway, she could be in danger and I want to tell my friend that. I have a lot of things I want to tell her, but I'm not sure where she is. Can you help me that, Mr…?"

"Just Malcolm," he replied. "And you are definitely the guy. Matt Murdock. The one whose funeral she attended from across the street. She's tough, but she still gets the occasional cold and standing outside a derelict bodega staring at your empty coffin in the rain was bound to do it."

Matt opened his mouth to speak, but Malcolm plowed on. "She's been messed up for a while now, anyone would be if they'd been through what she's been through. I think you might have been the last straw."

"She's got abandonment issues. I get it," Matt said. "Believe me, I do too."

"Oh man, you really don't know Jessica Jones at all do you?"

Matt's voice cracked under the confusion. "Why do people keep saying that to me?"

"Because it's true," Malcolm replied.

"Well I don't know what she told you, but she told me she was mad I died. Mad I left."

"She's always mad. That's her permanent state not an insight. She doesn't have abandonment issues. She has hero issues."

Matt stood again, as if standing somehow made it easier to digest what was coming.

"You know what happened to her, right? Not the whole story but you know there was was a time a man made her do things beyond her control. Control is important to her. She lives in a mess, hell, she is a mess, but she wants to control things. Because if she's in control people can't hurt her, people won't die."

Matt felt his head swelling as Malcolm's words penetrating the ignorance he had been surrounded in.

"She wanted to save you. She thinks she could have saved you. And I'm not going to ask what a blind lawyer was doing at Midland Circle. And I'm not going to ask why he decided to stay behind knowing the whole thing was coming down. And I'm definitely not going to ask why or how you're here now because that answer seems more complicated than it's worth. But I will say that when she loves someone she loves hard. She'll do anything. She'll kick your ass and cuff you to the toilet to make you stop getting high. She'll jump into the lion's den again, let herself get played by evil if she thinks that same evil will leave innocent people alone. And she'll fight alongside people who lie to her, people who know how to kick and punch like she never will, people who have cause to be there when all she has is a bogus case. She'll fight with them. She'll die with them. Or at least she would have."

Malcolm sighed when he realized he was standing too. It seemed talking about Jessica Jones made men defensive.

"So it's not about me leaving," Matt repeated.

"Leaving seems like a shit explanation for what you did, but yeah, it's not about that."

Matt reached for his cane and began fanning it out before him, working his way out of the room.

"Do you want me to tell her you were here?" Malcolm asked.

"No," Matt said without turning back to face him. "I know where she is now. Thank you."

Matt followed the path of the hall to the creaky elevator, his cane tap, tap, tapping out of earshot of Malcolm.

"You're welcome," Malcolm called out, but the elevator doors were already closing. The blind lawyer was already gone, having gotten what he needed, information and a well worn grey scarf.


	5. Act Five

He found her at the cemetery. Well, across the street from the cemetery, just as Malcolm had alluded she would be. She was leaning against the burnt out wood of the closed bodega, her arms crossed, black hair blowing across her face

At least her thought her arms were crossed and her hair was black. He couldn't be sure, but when he looked at her, or more accurately sensed her, she seemed closed, rigid, and dark. His impressionist painting of her was one of black flame, a flame impossible to put out.

"Jesus," she growled once he came into view. "What are you doing here?"

"I was in the neighbourhood," he joked, finding his place beside her. Using his strong hip, Matt pushed her aside a bit, making space for them both to lean.

"Look, I know I bailed, but..." she reluctantly began; her words so soft the wind nearly took them before he could be sure what she said.

Matt smiled. "You don't have to apologize."

She scoffed, redirecting what he had thought would be a heartfelt expression of her feelings into indignation. "I wasn't going to. I was going to say, I know I bailed, but you deserved it."

He sighed, but not out of frustration. Instead he sighed because he knew she was right. After a moment of silence, staring at the cemetery that housed his empty coffin, he said, "You know, this isn't easy for me either."

"Well, maybe you should have shown up bruised and bloodied, heart in your hands, instead of clean shaven with a fucking suit and I'd believe it was hard for you."

"As a blind man, appearances aren't the first thing I think about, Jessica. The suit is comfortable. It blends in and-"

"And it probably chaffs less than that red number you wear," she said sarcastically.

"You'd be surprised," he replied, pulling on the collar of his crisp white shirt.

Jessica eased beside him, her stiff hip softening into his own, her crossed arms falling at her sides. Matt was sure she was smiling and he liked it. He liked it so much, he knew it was time to tell her the truth.

"I found my mother. Or, more accurately, she found me. She nursed me back to health. I've been retraining and refocusing. I've been trying to find a way to really heal. A part of me thought I'd never come back here again. That maybe I shouldn't because this city can be hard to handle, but-"

"But we're in danger," she interjected, breaking into his confession in a way a priest never would.

"Yes," he said, ashamed. "Everything I tried to prevent by stopping Elektra is coming to the surface. Foggy and Karen might have created a cover for my death, but my enemies, the Daredevil's enemies weren't fooled. Some have figured out that Matt Murdock is the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and now everything's…"

"Fucked?" she asked.

Matt chuckled. "Yeah. Everything's fucked."

"I missed you," she suddenly said. It felt foreign to him, hearing someone as strong as her saying something so emotional, something so raw. He loved it.

"I missed you too."

In an instant her emotions were replaced by cool indifference. "But I don't want to go to war again, Murdock. If someone comes for me I'll take them on, but I can't fight armies of mystical fanatics or resurrected assassins. I just don't think I have it in me. I didn't have it in me then either."

"I doesn't matter, Jessica. I don't want you to do that," Matt told her. "I don't want you to fight at all. Just take your friends and skip town for a bit. I'll get to the bottom of this, find out who knows about me and-"

"And kill them?" she asked.

"Maybe."

She snorted. "You're not the killing kind."

"You'd be surprised what I'm capable of when it comes to protecting the people I love."

"Well, as close as I'm sure you and Danny have gotten during your brief time back home, I wouldn't call it love," she joked. "And I don't know if you noticed, but Claire loves someone else now."

"And you?"

"Someone once told me that I'm not capable of it. He was wrong about a lot of things, but on that count he was probably right."

"Jessica…" Matt began, but he stopped himself from continuing, wondering if she could hear the pity in his voice. And why should he pity her? So she didn't have a man in her life, so she wasn't like Colleen or Claire… did that matter? She was strong and smart and capable of more than any woman he had known. He resolved that there was no place for pity with her.

But he knew it was too late, he'd already let her hear it and now she was preparing to walk away. He could feel her body itching next to him, the molecules within her firing as she kicked herself off the wall and strode into the darkness.

"I gotta go, counselor."

"Out of town?" he called after her hopefully.

Jessica turned back to face him. "Are Luke and Danny really leaving?"

Matt shook his head no. "Turns out your little speech earlier may have changed their minds."

Jessica let out a hearty laugh and continued on course. Matt followed as she made her way down the middle of a quiet New York street.

"They said they have things here, people. They said they can't leave," Matt told her.

"And that you've been known to be a liar?" Jessica questioned.

"No. That didn't come up."

"But you know they were thinking it, right?" Jessica said as she walked faster into the night. Matt quickened his pace to stay just behind her. "You used your super powers or whatever to figure out they didn't trust you and so you came for me?"

"I used my abilities to determine they had more to gain by staying and that if push came to shove they would fight alongside me again… even if that's not what I want."

"Hm, I guess I was wrong," she told him, crossing into the yellow glow of the lamp post above them. "They really do love you."

As she stood before him bathed in artificial light, Matt could once again see her outline. It was softening. She was softening. All it took was 10 minutes and some not so small talk. The wind whipped up her hair again, this time casting it against the electrical hum of the streetlight. Her strands cascading out before him like the cresting rays of the sun.

She was beautiful. He was sure.

The screech of off brand tires less than one block away broke his attention. A van, big and boxy, carrying six men, each holding a loaded gun, was barrelling down the street. They were on a collision course with Jessica.

"Move!" he screamed to her, but it was too late. The van crashed into her side, propelling her into the air like a rocket. She hit the asphalt more than 30 feet away, her body rolling, her bones cracking.

"Jessica!" Matt cried, as the men from the van leaped out, it's front end severely damaged by a Jessica Jones shaped dent.

Before he could react, a second van screeched into earshot, coming from the opposite direction. Matt knew there was nothing he could do as it targeted Jessica lying on the pavement. In seconds it was on her, rolling her under it's tires with a series of terrifying thuds.

Matt rushed towards her, but the six men from the first van flanked him; their guns drawn, their knives sharpened and ready. Looking to Jessica, he could hear her writhing on the pavement, hear her body ache, but he didn't have the means to be by her side. He was fighting. He was exposed.

These men knew him as Matt Murdock. He was wearing a business suit and glasses. He was blind. There was no mask, no armour, no weapons but his own hands.

The flight came fast, a flurry of fists. They attacked in waves, three or four at a time rather than one on one. As Matt knocked them down, more took their place. Suddenly the six became 12. The second van had unloaded its deadly cargo.

In the distance, passed the repeated echoes of each kick, the swish of each knife almost cutting too close, Matt listened for Jessica. He heard nothing.

Another punch. Another kick. Matt fought hard, but he couldn't stop them all from connecting. A broken finger. A slashed arm. Bruised hands and face and legs and lungs.

"Jessica!" he screamed again, but there was no reply. At least not a verbal one. But finally he could hear her, feel her, being dragged into the second van. Her boots were scraping on the street. Her scent was diminishing as she was pulled further and further away.

Matt pushed his way through the hoard of assailants, slamming one after another to the ground. He reached the van as it peeled from the asphalt, its tires burning on a path out of danger. The back doors crashed closed as it turned the corner, an unconscious Jessica Jones trapped inside.

"Jessica!"


	6. Act Six

The van carrying Jessica Jones' pulled into a warehouse on the edge of Hell's Kitchen, coming to a stop just inside. Three men roughly dragged her from the back, depositing her violently on the cracked concrete below.

Jessica stirred, a soft groan escaping her lips. She was regaining consciousness and she knew she was in bad shape. Broken ribs, broken wrist, a dislocated shoulder and too many oozing cuts to count. It would heal, but as she took in her surroundings Jessica worried the healing would not come soon enough.

Three men around her, three more exiting the van. Distant voices and maybe a television in a room to her left. Without Matt's ridiculously good hearing, his super scent, she wasn't sure what other dangers lingered within the warehouse, but knowing bad guys as she did she was sure there were more.

Asshole Number One, a greasy haired, earring wearing lackey grabbed her by the shoulders and stood her up. Jessica couldn't help but grunt in response.

"Shut up!" Asshole Number Two growled from behind her, pulling a dirty chair up under her knees and forcing her down.

"Make me," she told him, her snark met with a fist to her face.

Blood flew from a fresh cut on her cheek and sprayed across the pants of Asshole Number Three.

Jessica laughed, her voice cracking.

"That's all you got?" she barked. "You punch like a… well, I was going to say girl, but any girl in New York could kick your ass. Especially me."

"Not today, sweetheart," Number One told her, grabbing her arms and pulling them behind her. She groaned as her shoulder muscle tore anew. The thug wrapped a thick rope around her wrists, the broken one crunching under the weight of a double knot.

"You know this won't hold me, right? I mean, you must after all the fucking news and blogs and bullshit. You know who I am."

"Yes," one of the men replied. She wasn't sure which one as the blood from her cut forehead began to run into her eyes. "We know exactly who you are."

"Then you know what I'll do once I'm free," Jessica told him.

The man pressed his hand into her side, her broken ribs pressing inward, her core straining. "You're never getting free," he told her.

Jessica coughed up blood and spit. It landed with a splat on the steel toed boot of Number One. He kicked her leg in response. It barely fazed her.

"You know, I'm the wrong girl to use as bait. He has plenty of pretty girlfriends who would have cried and begged for mercy, waiting for him to save them. Instead, you picked me and when he gets here together we're going to put you all down."

Shaking the blood from her eyes she looked up at her captors, defiant. But they seemed confused. Too confused. Suddenly she knew she wasn't bait at all.

Number Two leaned close. "I don't know what you're talking about and it really doesn't matter. This is for Kilgrave."

The name forced her heart to skip a beat, as if it had been strangled momentarily by an unseen hand.

Kilgrave? How? Before she could really think about it, press down her overwhelming fear and bite into the case at hand, the three assholes began to attack. Brass knuckles on each hand they punched her face and arms and stomach. Their swings were sadly inadequate and if the first van hadn't hit her, a van she realized must have been reinforced with more steel to ensure more pain, or if the second van had not run her over, she would be able to snap free of her binds and pummel every last bad guy.

Instead, the pain shooting through her stomach and her head combined with the name of a man she was sure was dead caused her to sit limp, taking punch after punch after punch.

As Asshole Number One reeled his arm back, preparing to punch her square on the jaw, his earring caught on something and in one quick jerk it was ripped from his lobe. The thug screamed in pain, blood spurting into the air as he turned to reveal his assailant: Matt Murdock, his eyes covered by Jessica's grey scarf.

The arrival of a new player caused the men from the other room to join and within seconds machine gun fire lit up the air. Matt flipped and kicked his way to each man, rushing them and punching them. Without the aid of his suit and his sticks he used anything he could find: chains, a crowbar, a empty toolbox smashed across Asshole Number Two's face.

Periodically, through the sensory overload that was the brawl, Matt could sense thugs running to Jessica. They were trying to drag her and the chair she was tied to further from the action. He knew that she was the target, not him. The men who fought him exposed in the street may have been surprised he was such a formidable opponent, but they didn't know he was Matt Murdock. More importantly, they didn't know Matt Murdock was Daredevil.

That knowledge quieted the fear in his mind, fear that these men were somewhere attacking Foggy or kidnapping Karen. Instead this was about Jessica Jones. Matt resolved to save her; the one time she couldn't save herself.

As her chair scraped backward, two sets of heavy hands dragging her to the exit, Jessica looked down and saw the trail of blood she was leaving behind. Inhaling deep a sharp pain shot through her and she groaned loudly, her bruised lips cresting open in a semi-permanent grimace. Sacrificing her own ribs, she thrust herself back, the force sending the chair to the ground, her body with it. Jessica's actions startled her captors and as both reeled back they found themselves at the mercy of Matt. In an instant, the one on the left was taken out by a car jack, scrounged from the back of the van and now implanted in his face. The man on the right, shocked and confused, didn't see the swift series of kicks Matt showered on him, and before he knew it his face met the floor.

In a flurry of movement, Matt straightened Jessica's chair and looked down to where he knew she was sitting. He could hear her struggling to breathe.

"Jessica," Matt said, his voice cracking. "Oh Jesus, Jessica."

He waited for her to reply, but silence strangled him.

Matt knelt beside her. She was still tied, her head hung low. He could hear the gentle flow of her raven hued hair swaying back and forth and the pat, pat, pat of the blood that dripped from her split ends.

Matt cupped her face, his fingers touching the warmth of her wounds.

"Jessica?"

He could feel her raised skin, a lump under her left eye. He could feel a cut on her forehead, open and oozing. He could feel her fat lip and the soft touch of her laboured breath on his palm.

"Jessica we have to get out of here," he told her as he worked on the ropes that shouldn't have held a woman as strong as her. "Jessica… please."

As her binds loosened Jessica's nearly unconscious body fell forward into his arms.

He caught her, shaking her, trying desperately to wake her.

"Jessica?"

She stirred and looked up at him. Through blood soaked eyes she could see he was still wearing her scarf and she smiled, then instantly regretted it. Matt had wanted to protect her, protect them all from danger. He had thought his past was fast catching up and that he needed to ensure everyone was safe. But it was her past that had won the race; her past that was putting him in danger.

From behind Matt, picking himself off the floor, Asshole Number One, his earlobe ripped and hanging loose, pulled a knife and ran full force toward them. Before Matt could react, Jessica thrust out her foot, her boot connecting with the thug's crotch. Even in her weakened state, Jessica's kick sent Number One flying through the air, his screams diminishing as he flew further away, ending with a violent crash into the brick wall.

"Nice," Matt told her, but she had already passed out, her body slumped over his shoulder.

Matt groaned as he stood, trying to keep her steady as he limped from the warehouse carrying her.

On his journey through the night, Matt made sure to focus on her breathing. In and out. In and out. As long as it kept pace he knew everything would be alright.


	7. Act Seven

Foggy had been the first person Matt visited upon his return to Hell's Kitchen. After everything they'd been through Matt knew there could be no more lies. Even though he was sure the ones he loved were in danger, Matt was just as sure Foggy could handle it. Maybe not physically; Foggy was no fighter. But Matt knew Foggy could handle the news of his survival and the new danger in that stood in their way.

After the hugs and laughs and gentle rough housing, after a few tears and a few drinks Foggy revealed he had kept Matt's loft.

With a fat paycheck from Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz, Foggy was able to keep the lights on, even though a dead blind man didn't need them. Matt had questioned why Foggy bothered.

"I don't know," Foggy had told him. "I guess I just wasn't ready to let you go."

Depositing Jessica's broken body on the couch, Matt had never been so happy to revel in Foggy's big heart.

Matt rushed to the bathroom, quickly turning on the water. Not too hot. Not too cold. Ignoring his own injuries he returned to Jessica's side and began removing her clothes. A tattered leather jacket, a torn sweatshirt, a blood stained Henley, dirty boots, nearly painted on jeans, and finally a pair of blood soaked fingerless gloves. He had intended to leave on her bra, but she hadn't been wearing one. Matt picked her up, her black cotton underwater shifting in his arms. He couldn't care. Modesty didn't matter when she was half dead and he was almost fully blind. Almost.

Standing her up, grabbing her around her naked waist, Matt stepped with her into the shower. His clothes soaked, he held her tight, letting the water clean her wounds. Hoping the water would wake her up.

He could hear the blood loss as it circled his drain and he could feel her broken ribs and torn muscles as they strained under his hold on her.

Finally she began to wake up, coughing and moaning.

"Jessica?"

"Murdock?"

Matt laughed in relief, his body relaxing a bit as he leaned against the shower wall taking her with him.

"Everything's going to be alright," he told her.

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she growled, lifting her arms and bringing a hand to her own face. She winced as her fingers touched cuts and bruises. Jessica quickly brushed her wet hair back and stared directly at Matt. He seemed to look away, almost as if he knew she was examining him.

There was a bruise on his cheek, slowly turning purple under the steady stream of warm water.

"You're hurt," she told him.

"So are you," he replied, thinking how foolish she was to care about him when her body was oozing blood.

"I'm naked," Jessica said, realizing her left breast was being poked by an errant button from his suit shirt.

"I promise I didn't look," Matt replied.

Jessica chuckled. "You know I'm going to heal, right? You don't have to go to all this trouble." As she spoke she steadied herself against him, placing one arm around his neck, her broken wrist hanging limp. She wrapped her other arm around his waist.

Matt inhaled deeply as her naked hips ground into his pants. Jessica didn't need super senses to tell she was getting to him.

"Is this your kinky fetish, counselor?"

"What?"

"Get an injured girl back to your place, take her clothes off, shower together? Maybe place your hand on the small of her back? Maybe hold her a bit too tight?"

He could tell she was smiling and for a moment he loosened his grip, but she only tightened her own.

"I don't have a fetish," he said, letting his hand press into her back once more, righting her naked body against him again.

"Yes you do," she said assuredly. "We all do."

They stood together, holding one another as the water poured over them.

Jessica felt weak. Not just because she had been injured, not just because she hadn't been able to take on a few vans - _fucking vans_ \- and not just because she was standing in a blind man's shower as he tended to her. She felt weak because of Kilgrave.

Was he alive? Was he in New York? Were the men who attacked her working for him? Or were they fanatical followers, men who did Kilgrave's bidding even after his death? Jessica didn't understand. Worse, she didn't know what to do next.

Her grip on Matt's neck tightened as she brought her head to rest on on his shoulder. He followed suit, holding her steady, feeling her naked breasts press into his chest through his soaked shirt. He breathed her in deep: whiskey and blood and sadness. And exhaled a relief he hadn't known since being back in Hell's Kitchen.

She was safe now. Safe at his side.

XXXXXXXXX

After finding her a clean towel and settling her back on his couch, Matt fished out his trusty first aid kit. It had been sitting in his hall closet like always, covered with a fine layer of dust.

"Are you a doctor now?" Jessica asked, her wet body wrapped in the towel, a shiver audible in her voice.

"My dad was a boxer… which you already know," he began. "I had to stitch him up quite a bit."

"You don't have to stitch me. Like I said, this will heal."

"Well, until it does, you're spilling blood all over my furniture," he told her.

Jessica nodded in agreement, not caring whether Matt could see her reaction or not.

"May I?" he asked, sitting down on the couch next to her, the first aid kit in his bruised hands.

Again, Jessica nodded, but this time it was coupled with a drop of her towel. Matt heard the wet clump gently hit his hardwood floor and he knew Jessica Jones was sitting before him naked.

"How does this work?" she asked, a chuckle in her voice. "You can't see where I'm injured."

"Your shoulder muscles are torn, your wrist is broken, you have cuts on your back and face-"

Jessica cut him off. "Of course you can hear my wounds. Weirdo."

Matt couldn't help but remember when Claire Temple had been in his apartment after her abduction by the Russians. He had explained his particular gifts to her, how he could hear fluctuations in the movement of her skin, muscles, and bone. But Jessica didn't want or need an explanation. She was willing to accept he was unique because she was too. And refreshingly her acceptance came without admiration. Matt felt at ease.

But his ease couldn't right his broken finger and the simple act of preparing scissors and stitches made him wince.

"You need to set your finger," Jessica told him.

"Like you set your shoulder?" he asked.

Early, just after their flight from the warehouse, Matt had stopped to take stock of their situation. Huddled in the corner of one of the dirty alleyways he had come to know, Matt realized Jessica's shoulder had been dislocated. He didn't want to move her without setting it, not fully understanding her healing abilities and not wanting to take the risk of anymore damage. But she was barely conscious. He wasn't sure what to do.

As his hands had fumbled over her form again and again, feeling the injury through her leather jacket, but unable to fix it, Jessica loudly groaned.

"What are you doing?" she had questioned him, her head swirling, her chest a knot of pain.

"You're awake," he had replied, startled, but she only grunted in reply as she tried to sit upright.

"No, no," Matt had continued. "Your shoulder is dislocated. You have to let me pop it back into place."

Without word or warning, Jessica reached for her own shoulder and with a hard, violent jerk forward she set the dislocation. The popping sound had echoed through the alley, bouncing off brick walls, repeatedly penetrating Matt's ears.

Through gritted teeth Jessica had said, "Pussy." But the pain and exhaustion and booze and overall absurdity of the situation had proved too much and she'd fallen back into his arms.

Sitting on Matt's couch, naked and bloodied, remembering her actions in that alleyway less than an hour earlier he smiled.

"Sometimes being gentle is just being weak," she told him. Her steady breathing and calm tone forced Matt to relax and in that instant she reached for his broken finger and yanked up hard, cracking it back into place.

"Fuck!" Matt screamed, more surprised than sore.

Jessica laughed, a laugh that permeated the tough core they'd both formed after the fight. She felt momentarily comfortable. It was refreshing. It was healing. Matt could even hear her wrist muscles linking back together like the charms on a chain. He slumped back on the couch, his finger fat and swollen, the scissors and stitches somewhere on the floor. He had given up on trying to mend her.

Jessica Jones could definitely mend herself he thought, as that laugh lingered in his ears long after she was done.


	8. Act Eight

When he awoke, she was gone, but she had left behind her scarf. Perhaps because there was blood on it - Matt could smell it as he picked the garment up off the ground - or perhaps because she wanted a reason to return. He hoped it was the latter, but Jessica Jones didn't seem to be the type to leave breadcrumbs behind. If she had wanted to stay she would have. If she wanted to see him again she would make it happen.

Staggering to the kitchen, still sore from the night before, Matt poured himself a stale cup of coffee.

Even though she had left in the night, he could still smell Jessica throughout his apartment. It was intoxicating. He had to shake himself from its grip.

She had slept on the couch, curled under her own leather jacket after claiming she didn't need a blanket. It was a spot worn in by many women: Karen, Claire, Elektra. They had each left their own mark on his life, but they had wanted to. Jessica didn't seem interested in leaving her mark, it just happened, it always happened wherever she went.

The mark was so deep Matt found himself sitting in the spot she left, relaxing into her empty space and wondering where she'd gone.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Jesus Jess, you look like shit," Trish told her as she exited the elevator. Jessica blew past her best friend, but not before taking the styrofoam coffee cup from her hand. Trish sighed, knowing that when Jessica wanted something it was hers.

"What happened last night?" Trish continued, trailing behind as they made their way to Jessica's apartment.

"A couple of vans, some bad guys, Matt," Jessica croaked out, her throat still sore and dry. She took a gulp of the coffee, or rather lightened, sweetened coffee concoction before adding, "It was all a fucking blur."

As she had told Matt the night before, her wounds had healed. Her shoulder was perfect, her wrist back in fighting form and the bruises that once littered her face were barely visible in the darkened hallway.

"Matt Murdock?" Trish asked. "The one you said you didn't care about when you discovered he was back from the dead." Her voice dripped with sarcasm, but Jessica ignored it. Her front door was open and she was sure she didn't leave it that way.

"Malcolm!" Jessica hollered. "I swear to whatever god you pray to that if you're in my apartment again I will kick the shit out of-"

"I'm right here," Malcolm interjected. He was behind them, exiting his own apartment just down the hall.

Jessica turned back to her own door, now knowing real danger could linger just steps away. "Stay here," she commanded her friends, before passing the coffee cup back to Trish.

With her heavy gait and raised fist, Jessica didn't bother sneaking into her home, she barrelled through the half open door ready for a fight. But her place was empty, save the remnants of her furniture which laid in pieces all over the floor. Taking a quick look around Jessica realized someone, maybe two or three someones, had been searching for something. They may have found it - her laptop was gone.

The sound of glass crunching under a shoe forced Jessica to spin around, but it was just Trish. Her high heels were pushing over the mounds of debris.

"I thought I said stay outside," Jessica said.

"And I thought you knew that wouldn't work with me," Trish replied. She found her place next to Jessica and took in all the same signs. "What do you think they were looking for?"

"I don't know," Jessica told her. She looked up to see a wide-eyed Malcolm in the doorway. "You didn't hear this?" she asked him incredulously.

"I was out," Malcolm said.

 _The one time you're not here_ , Jessica thought. But even if he had been there was nothing he could have done. The level of damage at her feet meant that her intruders were violent, indiscriminate and she knew they would have killed Malcolm.

"Well, they took your laptop," Trish said, only a minute behind Jessica's own observations. "What was on it?"

"Cases mostly, maybe some porn. I don't know," Jessica replied honestly.

"Okay, so this is about a case," Trish continued. "What are you guys working on?"

Malcolm walked further into the apartment, slowly picking up broken pieces of a chair and scrapes of the kitchen table, but they couldn't be salvaged. He sighed. "We haven't had a case in a while. Last one was some guy who thought the security team in his condo was stealing from the units."

"Were they?" Trish asked leaning against the only wall that seemed free of damage.

"It took a few nights of surveillance and a beat down, but Jess discovered it was the condo manager not the security team," Malcolm told her.

Jessica chuckled. "It was a real Scooby-Doo whodunit, but I don't think those assholes had anything to do with this."

She knelt down, picking up the shards of a broken bottle of whiskey, the contents staining the cracked hardwood floor.

 _Damn waste._

"So what are we going to do?" Malcolm asked.

"There is no _we_ ," Jessica replied.

Trish scoffed. "Ignore her. She'd be knee deep in Jim Beam if you weren't here to make sure her benders stayed this side of 24 hours."

"Okay, ouch," Jessica spat back, her eyes narrowing on Trish. "And knee deep is like three feet short of drunk, so I don't see the big fucking deal."

"Just admit that you need him… need us," Trish said.

"My place is trashed. Is this really the best time for us to hold hands and discuss our feelings?"

Malcolm couldn't help but smile. "Let's just clean this place up. We can figure out a strategy later."

"You clean up," Jessica told him. "I've already got my strategy."

"Jessica," Trish pleaded, but Jessica was already walking out the door.

XXXXXXXXXX

Less than an hour later, Jessica found herself standing in the lobby of Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz. She was spotted by the receptionist from at least ten feet away, prompting the lithe, well dressed woman to hurriedly reached under her thick oak desk. Jessica was sure she was pressing a security call button. If she had been anywhere but a law office, Jessica might have surmised the receptionist was actually reaching for a gun. You just never knew in New York.

Stomping to the desk, her heavy black boots scuffing the glistening tiles, Jessica leaned in, elbows resting, hips relaxed. "Jessica Jones to see Jeri Hogarth."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Hogarth is out of town on business," the receptionist replied while holding Jessica's penetrating stare.

Jessica scoffed. "Then what's her car doing in the parking garage? Fourth floor, right by the exit."

Without missing a beat, the receptionist countered, "She was taken to the airport in a company car. Would you like to leave a message for her, Miss Jones?"

"You are good," Jessica said softly, marvelling at how well Hogarth had trained her staff. After the fallout from Kilgrave, Jessica couldn't blame her. "I need something from her. Some files."

"I'd be happy to pass the request on and contact you by phone or email once it becomes convenient to do so."

Jessica laughed. "I know she's here, okay? And I think you're aware that if I wanted to I could be in her office right now, no appointment necessary."

Three broad shouldered men, each wearing a gun on their hips, suddenly appeared in the lobby. Jessica sighed. She hadn't wanted to do things the hard way, but somehow that always ended up being the case.

"Seriously guys, I don't want to hurt you," she told the men as they began to flank her. "But I will."

"Please come with us, Miss Jones," one of them said, but she knew the _please_ was only for effect. His request was anything but polite.

Jessica turned back to the receptionist whose once calm demeanor was deteriorating as she anticipated a superpower charged fight. "I need to see the files on Kilgrave," Jessica told the woman who couldn't help but react to the name. Everyone seemed to know it. "I think he might be back."

After Kilgrave's death, try as she and the New York City Police might, stories of the Purple Man's powers leaked to the press. Soon the front pages were littered with tales of everyday citizens being forced to rob stores or shoot family members. There was no way to tell who was lying, who had really been under Kilgrave's control and who was using it as a cover for their own nefarious deeds. It didn't matter. The damage was done. Once he was the stuff of Jessica's nightmares, but soon after he was a villain for the entire city.

Jessica knew the receptionist would relay her message to Hogarth. She would get those files one way or another. Jessica leaned over the desk one last time and whispered, "Tell Hogarth she knows where to find me."

Raising her hands in the air, her fingerless gloves covering the healing scrapes from her hit and run the night before, Jessica gave up - for now. "Alright, alright. I'm leaving. No need to shoot or tackle or whatever," she said smiling slyly at the men. "No need for you guys to get your asses kicked today, right?"

The men watched her defiantly walk out of the lobby back onto the city streets.

Just as quickly she was grabbed by the arm and slung into the nearby alleyway. She was already poised for a fight, but the move was so familiar she would have know it was him even with her eyes closed.

"Murdock," she sighed.

"Do you normally threaten strangers in the middle of the afternoon?" Matt asked her, pressing her further down the alley away from the law office. He knew she could break away at any time. He knew she was humouring him.

"You were listening to my conversation? From out here?" Jessica whipped around to face him. "Just a little bit creepy, counselor. Like, this much creepy," she said mockingly, holding her fingers up to indicate an amount she was sure Matt could not fully see.

Matt let go of her arm, his hand already twisted by her erratic movements and his equilibrium still off from the fight the night before. He didn't heal like she did, and he wasn't fully prepared for battle - not after his long recovery following Midland Circle.

"Did you follow me?" she asked him. "Or did you divine that I would be here?"

He couldn't help but smile. "I'm a Catholic not a prophet." Even without sight, he knew Jessica was rolling her eyes. "I came to talk to Foggy, my former law partner. I heard you from outside. I promise I didn't know you would be here."

"As a man recently back from the dead who has a fear that his loved ones are targets, you sure do seem to throw caution to the wind."

"Meaning?" he asked her.

"Meaning it's broad daylight and anyone could have followed you here. And then they know you have connections to someone inside." she told him matter of factly.

Matt mentally kicked himself. He was acting like he had before his _death_. He had been doing it for a week. Contacting Foggy, going to Claire's apartment, Jessica's office, now Foggy's work. He was acting like Matt Murdock and Daredevil were two different people, but if his suspicions were still right his enemies knew the truth.

"If you want my professional opinion, you're not acting like a guy who doesn't want to be found," she said.

"You're right," he told her. Jessica loved being right. "I should go." He began to quickly walk further down the alley toward the dead end, but Jessica knew he was going to ninja his way out, via grips and flips like the first day she met him.

 _The first day we met. Fuck!_

"You're my lawyer!" She called out after him before he could begin scaling the wall.

Matt turned back to face her, confused.

"You have those damn files."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 **AUTHOR NOTE: thanks for reading. Sorry for the later than usual upload on this one (personal stuff, blarg). This is a bridge chapter to the next bit of action. Please review to let me know what you think and what you hope to see in the future. I really, really love feedback - and I try to implement it to make the story better. Thanks again!**


	9. Act Nine

"I've already read Hogarth's files," Matt told her. He was chasing after her, his cane repeatedly tapping on the sidewalk, his shoulders periodically bumping passerbys. Jessica was parting a sea of New Yorkers before her, moving swiftly with one goal.

"And now I want to read them," she called back over her shoulder, but with his heightened senses Matt heard her perfectly. He could also hear her heartbeat, fluttering rapidly in anticipation. She was excited and he knew she wouldn't stop.

"I just don't think there's anything there-" he began, almost missing Jessica's abrupt stop mid-stride. He nearly walked into her.

She turned around to face him, the sea of people settling back into their original form, encircling them indifferently. "While I appreciate that you've read up on me, you can't know if anything important is in those files because you don't know what you're looking for."

"I know they don't say anything about some-," Matt stopped himself, knowing they were surrounded by potentially perked ears.

Jessica scoffed, not caring who heard them. "Some Kilgrave cult?" she finished for him. "No kidding. I'm not expecting to see the rap sheets and current addresses of our attackers, but if there's anything to be known, Hogarth knows it. Trust me, she's not just a lawyer."

Jessica turned back, continuing her brisk walk to Matt Murdock's loft. She had memorized the route earlier that morning - in reverse. Past a dry cleaners, one block from a closed Thai place, and just 35 feet from the corner. For a moment she had thought about buying him a coffee and a croissant and returning to the relative comfort of his couch, gifts in hand. She had thought about saying "thank you" or "you didn't have to" or something to show her gratitude - _even though she probably could have fought her way out of there had he just given her a momen_ t. She had thought about showing her vulnerability, talking to him about her fear that Kilgrave had returned. She had thought about letting him in, but decided against it. She was better off alone.

Climbing the stairs to his loft, Matt trailing just slightly behind, she resolved once the files were in her hands she would go back to working solo. As Matt fumbled with his keys she told him so, "Look I just want the files and then we can go our separate ways."

He opened the door and she stormed inside.

"Meaning what exactly?" he asked her.

"Meaning no one knows Kilgrave like I do. If he's back it's up to me to stop him."

Jessica found her way to his desk and without invitation began rummaging through his things. Matt didn't stop her. Instead he sat down in the leather chair closest to her, leaning back, waiting for what was to come.

Picking up a file marked "Jessica Jones", she leafed through it's pages. But Jessica quickly realized she would never be able to read Matt's version of Hogarth's files. They were in braille.

 _Asshole._ "You knew I wouldn't be able to read this," she said, tossing the pages back down on the desk.

Matt smiled, but his boyish charms meant nothing to her. She lunged for him and grabbed the collar of his shirt, but his smile failed to dissipate. Jessica released him in frustration.

She ran a hand through her thick mane. "Why would bring me here if you knew the files were useless?"

"I didn't bring you here. I followed you, remember?" he replied, the smile still lingering.

"Would you stop smiling?" she growled.

Matt had to force himself to pull it back. "I'm sorry. I just think you're going about this all wrong. I told you when we first met that I would help you and I'm telling you again. You don't have to fight alone."

"Said the guy who forced his team to abandon him so he could martyr himself by dying with his evil ex-girlfriend?" she spat back. "Yeah. If it's all the same to you, alone works best for me."

"Okay," he relented, momentarily regretting not having told her about the files before she heavy footed through all of Hell's Kitchen. Then his smile returned.

"What now?" Jessica asked.

"It's just… well, I didn't think you rattled."

Jessica pushed the braille pages off the desk. Matt listened as they fluttered one by one to the ground. She then filled the empty space, sitting on the desk herself, her long legs dangling.

"I'm not rattled. I'm pissed off," she told him truthfully.

Frustration rose inside her as she swung her legs back and forth trying to determine her next move. Was he trying to protect her somehow, leading her away from Hogarth's offices to ensure she couldn't see the real, readable files? Maybe he thought the information contained within would hurt her in some way. But he had no idea how she could be hurt and how she was capable of hurting back.

 _Who is he to think he can help me? Save me?_ Jessica's pulse began to race as her anger rose.

Sensing her increasing annoyance, Matt knew what he had to do. "I can read them to you, if you want," he gently told her, standing to retrieve the pages.

As he crouched on the hardwood next to her, he felt her eyes following him. "How will I know you're reading everything?"

"I guess you'll just have to trust me."

After another heavy sigh, Jessica slinked to the floor next to him. She curled her legs beneath her and began collecting the loose pages with him. Matt listened as her heartbeat normalized, her pulse relaxed, and the anger began to cool.

"You ready?" he asked, settling in next to her.

"Actually, I could use a drink."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

One bottle of scotch later, Matt had finished reading aloud the entirety of Jeri Hogarth's files on Jessica. They had included information about the beginnings of her relationship with Kilgrave, what he had made her do under his influence, and his death at her her hands. Matt had read them before, but doing so with her sitting no more than two feet away coloured the experience. Jessica tried to maintain her indifference, but each mention of his name was followed by another swig of the scotch bottle - a bottle she neglected to share.

But, as he had told her before, there was nothing in the file's pages that would allude to Kilgrave's miraculous resurrection. Matt was sure the men who attacked them were only talking big. Jessica Jones was a known figure, people recognized her. It stood to reason criminals were among them. Taking out the woman who killed Kilgrave might equal status within a gang or mob. Matt was positive that Kilgrave was dead and someone out there wanted Jessica dead too.

"Are you okay," he asked against his better judgment. Jessica Jones did not seem to the be the type of woman who needed sympathy,

Jessica didn't reply. Matt could almost hear her thinking.

After what felt like minutes of strained silence, she said, "We have to go back to the warehouse."

Matt shook his head no.

Jessica stood in protest, the empty bottle of scotch hanging loosely from her hand. "I thought you were some kind of superhero," she said to him, baiting him. "I mean, let's say I'm wrong and this has nothing to do with Kilgrave, there's still a shady warehouse on the edge of Hell's Kitchen where greasy guys kidnap women and beat them."

"And I took care of them," he reminded her.

" _We_ took care of them," Jessica corrected, taking a swig from the bottle before realizing there was nothing to swig. "And we failed to figure out what was going on. I think the PI in me and the superhero in you needs to go back."

Matt stood beside her, taking the empty bottle and resting it on the desk, fearing it would eventually slip from her hands. "That's the second time you've called me a superhero. Trust me, I'm not."

Jessica laughed, letting her head roll back. Matt wished he could see her in all her glory, but settled for reading the vibrations that emanated from her body and the aura of scotch that saturated her.

He couldn't help but love how easily her mood changed. She might be burdened by Kilgrave, but she could still laugh. She could still mock him. He wondered if all the alcohol helped in that regard, allowing her to loosen around him - or maybe she was just comfortable by his side.

When they had first met they didn't like each other. No trust, no respect. But within one conversation, albeit one where he smashed her camera and heard her call him an "asshole", he knew he liked her. He liked her stubbornness, her determination, her inability to tell him something other than the truth. Calling him a superhero was her way of saying he was the kind of man who would stop at nothing to help people. And right now she was the one who needed his help.

As Matt opened his mouth to reply, ready to charge headlong into danger once again his ears perked at the sound of brakes screeching on the street below. The two vans from the night before were parked outside his building and at least a dozen men were exiting.

"We can't go to the warehouse," he told Jessica.

She sighed in response. "Really? Not even after I called you a superhero?"

Matt wanted to smile in return, but he was too busy calculating the odds of their success in a close quarters fight. 12 men they could handle, but in the distance another van could be heard making entry onto his street. That would make it 18 men. With Jessica healed, he knew together they could take the advantage.

"Hello? Are you listening to me?" Jessica said, cutting into his thoughts.

"We can't go to the warehouse, because the guys from the warehouse are here."

Jessica didn't ask him how he knew. She trusted in his abilities and made a straight shot for the window, peering down to the growing crowd of thugs below.

"Fuck," she muttered under her breath.

"There's only 18. We can take 18," Matt told her.

"I think you should suit up," she said.

He hadn't worn the Daredevil suit since the day he "died". It had been badly mangled in the collapse of Midland Circle. Parts of it were cut or torn away by the nuns treating him. When he left he took all the pieces that could be saved, but he had yet to reveal his return to Melvin Potter or anyone outside the circle who fought The Hand.

"Well?" Jessica questioned, as she watched the group below split into two, some men making their way into the front of the building, some charging behind and out of sight.

"I don't have a suit to change into," he told her feeling foolish. He had come home to warn everyone they were in danger, but never thought to arm himself for what could be the fight of his life? _Stupid, Matt_.

"Then here," Jessica said, as she picked her blood stained scarf off the coffee table and threw it at him.

Matt caught it with a grin. Taking his glasses off and placing them in his coat pocket, Matt tied the grey scarf tightly around his head and eyes. Fists up, he was ready, until he heard a fourth van arrive.

"There are more," Jessica said. She had returned to her perch at the window.

She was right. Five more men. No six. But the sixth walked differently. Heavy. Hard. The van's undercarriage moaned, the metal groaning in relief as this new player stepped out onto the street. The earth seemed to part around him. His expanse was too great.

Matt knew instantly who it was. "Fisk!"


	10. Act Ten

"Isn't that guy supposed to be in prison?" Jessica Jones asked from her spot at Matt Murdock's window. She was looking down on Wilson Fisk, his broad chest and shoulders engulfing her view, his bald head reflecting the yellow light from the streetlamp above. It was as if he had his own spotlight. Jessica knew the stage was set.

Turning back to Matt, she realized he was in no position to fight. Not really. Yes, his eyes were covered and his fists were up, but the tilt of his head let her know he was distracted. He was listening to Fisk six stories below, transfixed.

"Okay, we have to go," Jessica told him. She rushed to his side, taking his hand and pulling in one quick movement. Matt felt himself jerked to the right, her strength overpowering him.

"We can fight," he protested, but he knew better than to try and resist her tugs.

As their fingers became entangled, Matt felt the rush of her pulse. It matched his own. They were both afraid.

"Yeah, we could fight," Jessica told him. "Or we could get the fuck out of here and regroup."

Matt realized Jessica's fear was not for herself, but for him. She didn't want to see him hurt. But he couldn't think about that. Wilson Fisk was outside, commanding a new army, coming for Matt Murdock, not the Daredevil. He had to fight. He had to stand his ground. But Jessica was already pulling him out his loft doors and up the stairs to the roof.

"Jessica," he began, but it was too late. From the roof access doors, three of Fisk's lackeys entered and immediately began a rush of action, moving toward Jessica like a battering ram.

Jessica stepped back, confused.

 _Why are they rushing me?_ she thought, but there was little time to process. Despite her concerns, Matt leapt into battle.

He was a capable fighter and he always seemed to know his opponent's next move. Jessica was a smash and grab kind of girl. She smashed the first bad guy who came toward her with both fists to his face, then she grabbed him as he stumbled backwards and tossed him down the stairs.

Matt pressed his way through the remaining two, kicking one in the chest, sending him into Jessica's fists and grappling with the other: close, tight, fists to face and ribs. Jessica pushed them both, sending Matt and his assailant through the door to the roof. As they tumbled on the tar, unlatching from one another, Jessica kicked the man in the stomach, sending him back against the ledge, knocking him out. She reached down for Matt's hand, but he was already scrambling to his feet, ready for more.

"Come on!" she shouted to him. "We have to go."

Matt refused to move, poised for another fight. He could hear men ascending the stairs, knives ready, brass knuckles clinking.

Jessica feared he couldn't see what was really happening. She now knew that once again, this wasn't about him, but her. _Fuck._

Jessica grabbed his arm. "Let's go, Murdock!"

"We can fight them," he said once again, adrenaline coursing through his veins, making him manic.

"I know that," she spat in his face. "But we don't have to. You don't have a suit."

"I don't need it," he told her definitely.

"Okay, maybe _I_ don't want to fight," she offered, but Matt knew she was lying. She would fight if need be - in fact, she would fight without need. Like Malcolm had told him just the day before she was always mad, it was her _permanent state._ She didn't really need a reason to throw a few supercharged right hooks. No, Matt knew that Jessica wanted to leave because she was genuinely afraid. The fear washed over her, colouring her normally red flame a bright blue. Matt had to look away or he would become entranced.

Then the voice of Wilson Fisk boomed over any thought Matt had, crashing into his brain and exploding with the force of dynamite.

"I told them to bring me the girl," Fisk snarled to someone unseen and unheard. Matt knew he was standing on the street, looking up, waiting for his handywork to be complete. Fisk continued, "But I think we have the opportunity to remove a thorn from my side."

Confused, Matt wondered why Jessica was a target of Wilson Fisk. But before he could truly comprehend his enemy's plan Fisk hollered into the night, loud enough so that Jessica and every thug could hear. "Capture the girl! Kill the devil!"

As if on cue, the men on the stairs moved faster, spurred on by their master's commands. They ran as one, a wave of danger cresting through the roof door, preparing to swallow Matt and Jessica whole.

"We have to go," Jessica pressed again, as the thugs began to surround them.

Annoyed and angered, Matt turned to face her. If he could see through the scarf, or see at all, Jessica was sure his eyes would have burned into her.

"You said to me that no one knows Kilgrave like you. That if he was alive it was your job to stop him," he reminded her. "Well, no one knows Wilson Fisk like me. I am responsible. I have to stop him."

"Dammit," she growled. "I was afraid you would say that."

With a sad shrug, Jessica lined up her fist and laid a punch square across Matt's jaw. He went down hard, his body almost bouncing off the concrete. As she quickly picked him up, draping him over her shoulder, she heard Fisk holler from below.

"Attack them!"

His voice washed over the men and all at once they ran towards Jessica, their weapons outstretched and glistening in the moonlight.

"Fuck," Jessica yelped. She knew she could fight, like Matt had wanted. She was relatively sure she might even win, despite the heavy numbers before her. But something in their eyes, the eyes of her assailants, made her shiver. So, she turned tail and ran, her right arm tightening on Matt's waist trying to steady him.

As her would-be attackers followed, Jessica leapt from the roof. Unlike the men behind her, she made it to the next building over, then the next, and the next after that. She could hear the screams of men falling to their deaths, having jumped after her, not making the distance. But she couldn't think about that. She couldn't think about what their deaths meant. She couldn't think about anything but getting Matt to safety.

A safety she felt guilty bringing him to because they were leaving everything behind - his cane, his suit, and his safe haven.


	11. Act Eleven

Matt awoke, groggy and sore. His jaw was on fire. He could taste the embers of bruised skin inside his mouth and groaned. He was sitting upright against a brick wall on a roof somewhere in Hell's Kitchen. For a moment he worried he may be tied down, recalling the time he spent with Frank Castle on a similar rooftop only months before. But Jessica had no interest in restraining him, working against him. She only wanted to protect him.

He could hear her directly across from him. She was out of breath and holding her cramping side. Strength was one thing, stamina was another. She really needed to consider working out.

Matt imagined her hopping from roof to roof, or flying as she had once put it, his unconscious body hanging from her powerful hands. If it had been anyone else he might have been embarrassed. Embarrassed to be laid out by one punch or embarrassed to be dragged across the city. Instead, he was impressed and almost flattered that she cared so much. But it didn't matter. He wouldn't stop. He had to go back.

He rose from slumber and immediately made his way to the roof ledge, scanning the darkened city for a way down, listening to the vibrations around him.

Jessica's hand on the collar of his shirt yanked him back.

"Are you serious?" she barked. "I just got your ass out of there and you want to go back?"

"You shouldn't have done that," Matt told her. She knew he had been angry before, but now she could hear it. His words cut like a knife. "I told you I need to fight."

"And I told you I didn't want to," she replied. "Did you think I was just going to leave you there?"

"You're worried about me. It's radiating off of you. I get it. I worry about you too, but Jessica, that was Wilson Fisk."

"I know who that was," Jessica told him. "And radiating? Come on. Let's try to keep the weirdo factor to a minimum."

"Enough with the snappy comebacks!" he yelled.

It was so shocking Jessica couldn't help herself. She slapped him in the face, right where she had punched him. Matt's jaw shook wildly as he stumbled backward.

"That was like a fifth of my strength. Don't piss me off, Murdock."

The slap was what he had needed and he resigned with a sigh. "I'm sorry," he said slowly. "But I know now that this isn't about Kilgrave. It's about Fisk. He knows who I am and he's after me."

"As much I love a little self aggrandizing, didn't you hear him? He said 'kill the devil'."

Matt had almost forgotten. Fisk _had_ said that, hollered it, in fact. He was so loud Jessica heard him from the roof. Everyone heard him.

"Capture the girl and kill the devil," Matt restated.

"Exactly," Jessica said. "So this is about me, counselor. _And_ Kilgrave. And I don't want to see you die for any of that."

Matt smiled, but immediately regretted it as his cheek strained against a newly forming bruise.

"Okay, I'll play," he said slyly. "This can be about _both_ of us. But not Kilgrave."

Jessica shook her head from side to side. "I don't think that was really Fisk," she told him. "At least not the version you know and hate."

"What? Why not?"

"Because I think he was using Kilgrave's mind control… powers."

Matt scoffed. He knew a Kilgrave had… powers. So did Jessica and Luke and, depending on who you asked, even Danny with his glowing fist. But in most instances those powers were non-transferable.

Hell, his own gifts had come from a horrific accident.

Matt knew that even if those circumstances were reproduced - the delivery truck, the chemical waste, the old man crossing the street, the boy who wanted to do good - there was no guarantee the next recipient of forced blindness would go on to do more than any seeing man could imagine.

Fisk was no Kilgrave.

"It sounds crazy, I know," Jessica said before he could. "And it's not something I even remotely want to be true, but I saw what I saw."

"Which was what?" Matt asked.

"Those assholes jumping to their deaths. Or at the very least into a series of elaborate injuries, maybe a coma or two."

Matt didn't reply. He had been unconscious during Jessica's apparent epiphany regarding a Fisk/Kilgrave connection.

She sighed loudly, her breathing finally returning to normal after her flight through Hell's Kitchen. "Fisk yelled attack or some bullshit. He ordered those men to capture me and kill you."

"Yeah…"

"And when I jumped off the roof, they followed."

"And missed," Matt said.

Jessica sighed again. He could feel her frustration rising, the air surrounding them heating up.

"No, not missed. They didn't care. They didn't weigh the pros and cons or wonder who would scrape them off the pavement if they didn't make it. They just did what they were told."

Matt remembered reading Hogarth's files and he knew Kilgrave's instructions were often taken literally - sometimes with deadly consequences. But Fisk wasn't capable of that. His power was money laundering and walloping men in the chest with the strength of a gorilla, not mind control.

Matt began to pace the roof, using the rhythm of each step to help him think.

Jessica, on the other hand, found a spot on the ground and sat down. She knew she was right. There was no more thinking required.

After minutes of silence, Matt wondered aloud, "How did Kilgrave become Kilgrave?"

"What?"

"How did he get his… powers?" Yep, Matt hated that word.

"Um, he got them when he was a kid," she told him, leaning back on her hands.

"Like us?" Matt questioned incredulously, thinking back to his hypothesis about the accident - the accident that led to him becoming Daredevil. Could it really be possible that things of that nature could happen twice?

But Jessica squashed that theory. "No, not like us."

Jessica had never thought of her and Matt Murdock as an _us_ , but she was beginning to realize they had more in common then a fight against The Hand. They were each involved in terrible accidents as children. They each gained heightened abilities. They each lost their parents. They each fought for people who couldn't fight for themselves.

"His parents experimented on him when he was a kid," Jessica continued. "He had some kind of brain disease that couldn't be cured, so his parents started doing tests on him. They were trying to save him, but… I don't know, I guess depending on who you believe they began treating him as a lab rat and turned him into what he was. Or, you know, they were loving parents who wanted to help their son and didn't realize what he was becoming until it was too late."

"What do you believe?" Matt asked. He had stopped pacing.

Jessica shook her head. "I don't know. And I don't think it matters."

After an agonizing minute of reflection on Jessica's indifference, Matt resumed his pace, resumed his hurried thinking.

"Can you stop that?" she asked him. "It's making me sick."

"I just need to put it all together," he told her.

"I've already done it," Jessica replied, a chuckle escaping her throat. "It's not that hard. There are bad guys who want to kill us and we have to stop them. We call Luke and Danny and-"

"No!" Matt snapped.

Jessica deflated at the sound of his refusal. "Look, I know I just said, like an hour or two ago, that I work better alone so this may seem hypocritical. But I'd rather be a hypocrite than dead. We can't face this on our own."

"We can if we know what we're up against." Matt kicked at the loose tar beneath his feet and stomped to the other side of the roof. His frustration was palpable. Jessica could almost taste the tension in the air. She grudgingly picked herself off the ground and staggered to his side, exhausted and confused.

Leaning over the edge, looking down at the ignorant people below, people who could be in danger if she and Matt did not act, Jessica gave into her better judgement and decided to play it Matt's way. Perhaps it was the least she could do for a man so hell bent on saving her life.

"Okay, so let's work this out," she said, her elbows resting on the ledge, her long hair hanging loose, blowing in the night air.

Matt found his place beside her, peering down, seeing shapes rather than people.

"Fisk must have escaped from prison," Matt began. "Help from the the outside maybe."

"And then he used his money and influence to grow a new army," Jessica added.

"To come after me," Matt finished.

"Us," Jessica reminded him and he sighed heavily in remembrance. "And, I guess, the whole being able to control people's minds is just… what? An added bonus," she quipped, sighing along with him.

"You said Kilgrave was experimented on. Could those same experiments give someone else his powers?"

Jessica scoffed. "I don't think that's how it works. Kilgrave was ripe for crazy town. He was already a sociopath and whatever his parents did amplified it."

"But you said you weren't sure whether his parents made him this way or were trying to help him," Matt countered. "It stands to reason that if he was made, not born, then someone else could attain those powers too."

"And if Fisk has it who's to say someone else doesn't too?" Jessica wondered aloud. She was reeling from the thought of there being another two or three or five Kilgrave's walking the streets of New York. Muttering to herself, she pushed back from the ledge angrily and began to pace, taking up the place Matt had left just a moment before.

"Okay, hold on," Matt told her, moving from the ledge and returning to her side. He grabbed her by the arms, holding her tightly. He thought of hugging her - it's what he would do if she were Karen, hug away the tension, let her know he was here - but Jessica didn't need that. She needed a reality check. He shook her.

"Fuck, Murdock," she yelped, prying herself from his grip. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Shaking some sense into you," he told her. He needed Jessica ready for what was to come next.

"I have sense. I'm the one who figured this whole thing out!" Jessica snapped.

Matt chuckled. "Does it feel like anything is figured out?"

Jessica resigned herself to the knowledge that, no, nothing was solved - rather she had figured out that there was something that needed solving. Maybe Fisk was able to dabble in a little experimentation that led to him having Kilgrave-like powers. Maybe there were others. Maybe he and his army were trying to kill them.

 _Wait…_

"Why did he want to capture me and not kill me?" Jessica asked.

The question snapped Matt out of thinking about how to take Fisk down and back to thinking about his motive. Why had he wanted Jessica alive?

 _Capture the girl. Kill the devil._


	12. Act Twelve

"We need to get off the street." Jessica Jones said, a black leather jacket snugly tucked around her thin frame, a dirty and bloodstained scarf hanging from her neck. Walking through Hell's Kitchen after midnight, braving the cold, the scarf felt like a badge of honour. Or a sign that read: _don't fuck with me._

Matt Murdock followed as close as his feet would allow. His hand was latched around her arm. It appeared to anyone who happened to look their way that they were a couple walking home after a night of revelry at one of the many dive bars that littered the neighbourhood. In reality, Matt was just trying to keep up as Jessica stomped ahead, putting as much distance between them and their rooftop refuge.

Matt hadn't wanted to stay. He had been unconscious when Jessica had carried him there, and as much as he trusted her he couldn't trust that they had not been followed. They had needed to find somewhere safe and warm and dry.

"Dry?" Jessica had asked him as they descended the stairs to the street.

Matt could feel the air around them changing. He knew it was going to rain.

"God, you're weird," she had muttered under her breath.

Now they were walking, almost running, with no real destination in mind.

"We need to get off the street," Jessica said again, waiting for Matt to suggest somewhere, anywhere that they could go.

She had revealed they couldn't go to her place - it had already been trashed. "If they're looking for us they'll go to all the places connected to us," she had told him. Matt knew that meant he couldn't turn to Foggy for help.

 _Or Karen._ Matt had yet to tell her he was alive. She had a new apartment, nicer, safer than her old one. And it was free of bullet holes - or at least Foggy told him it was. Matt had visited it his third night back from the dead. He sat outside, one rooftop away, and listened to her wash her dishes while humming. Then he heard her get a call on her cell, a call from Frank Castle. He knew then that things had changed while he was away. And so when they rattled off the friends and family they couldn't turn to, Matt hadn't even mentioned her name.

"Let's just stop up ahead," Matt said, feeling the first drops of rain hit his skin. He was without his glasses, his cane, or even a jacket. He was shivering, but pretending the cold didn't matter.

Jessica saw the blinking crimson light of an open sign hanging over the sidewalk. Against her better judgment, the judgment that told her to run and hide and maybe even cry at the thought of an army of Kilgraves preparing an attack on New York, Jessica hurried underneath the sign and stepped inside a 24 hour diner. She needed a drink.

Pulled into the doors just behind her, a bell chiming their arrival, Matt read her mind. "I don't think they're going to have booze."

Jessica chuckled. "It's okay. I brought my own." She removed a flask from her jacket pocket, shaking it so Matt could hear the golden liquid sloshing about inside. "Thanks, by the way."

It figured Jessica would raid his liquor cabinet. She didn't bring any weapons or grab his jacket during their flight from Fisk, but she made sure her whiskey rations were well stocked.

"Sit anywhere you like," the waitress called from behind the counter. She was absently reading the paper, flipping through the pages, creating a rhythm Matt could follow, a soft vibration that let him take in the room.

Releasing himself from Jessica's arm he took the lead, finding a booth away from the window and sliding into it's torn and dirtied seat.

"Coffee," Jessica said, finding her place across from Matt, turning her body to face the door. She knew stopping was necessary, but she also knew there were no guarantees of their safety, or that of the waitress and unseen cook.

But within a few minutes, they were drinking coffee, his black, hers spiked, trying to collect their thoughts - trying to figure out what to do next.

"I just don't understand why they would want you," Matt finally said, resigned to the knowledge that his intellect couldn't figure this one out; there was no closing argument to make.

"I don't care," Jessica told him, slurping back another gulp of whiskey tinged coffee, her head resting on the sticky diner wall, boots firmly placed on the booth seat.

"You're the one who remembered it," Matt said incredulously. "You're the one he wants. How can you not care?"

"Because I'm working one problem at a time, Murdock. I don't know what it takes to be a lawyer, but as an investigator you can't see the whole picture until you gather the evidence. Right now, we have no new clues." she sighed. "Which means we're both just thinking in circles."

"I would rather talk this out than do nothing."

"I'm not doing nothing. I'm drinking," she remarked.

Ignoring her, Matt wondered aloud, "Maybe we could go to a hotel?"

Jessica scoffed. "Man, you're green. They know us, counselor. And from what I've read in the papers, this Fisk guy is connected. Without fake ID's and maybe a damn wig, we're not getting into any hotel without being spotted."

"I know. You're right," he told her. Jessica loved being right.

"No one knew he was out. I mean, he's supposed to be in Riker's, right?"

Matt nodded in agreement.

"But I didn't see a headline about his escape or release. Did you?"

"Well, we've been busy," he reminded her, taking a sip of his coffee, wishing it was stronger.

"You can hear, like, everything. Don't you think your Spidey Senses would have picked up some asshole watching Channel 5 if they were reporting on Fisk's escape?"

"Don't call them that?" Matt pleaded, annoyed. But he knew the request would go unanswered. Mocking him and his abilities seemed to be a coping mechanism. The snark was like a shield, something she could hold up or, in a pinch, throw in someone's face in order to knock them back.

Matt had always been weary of explaining the inner workings of his power. Partially because it exposed him, but mainly because it sounded ridiculous. Jessica never asked what he could do or how he could do it, but she also never missed an opportunity to poke fun.

"You have to know someone who can help us," she finally said.

"Me?"

"I know two fucking people. Trish and Malcolm. One has a penthouse with plenty of room, but is basically famous and therefore easy to find. The other lives in a shoebox that's just down the hall from my ransacked office. So, I think it's fair to say Fisk and his lackeys know about both of them."

"You said it yourself earlier today-" Matt began.

"Yesterday," Jessica reminded him.

 _Fuck. Yesterday._

When had they last slept? It was now 1:28 AM. Only three days since he had revealed his return to Claire and Luke and Danny… revealed his fears to Jessica. It felt like three weeks, or perhaps months.

"You said yesterday that I can't be seen with people I know. It only draws attention to the fact that I've returned. And you just said five minutes ago that we can't go places we might be connected to."

Jessica laughed, nearly spitting out the last swallow of alcohol - had that happened, she really would have been pissed. "First, I said that bit about drawing attention to yourself before they attacked us at your loft. _Your_ loft. Fisk obviously knows you're back. The cat is definitely out of the bag on that one. And second, I'm not suggesting we seek shelter with that stupidly named lawyer you know or the blonde you're obviously sleeping with."

Before Matt could respond, she reached across the table and grabbed his coffee cup. Without word, she gulped it down.

"But you grew up here. You know people," she continued.

"So do you," he said, taking his cup back, feeling it's emptiness.

"Most of the people I know I've punched in the face. I'd say with a history like that, they're probably not inclined to give us shelter for the night."

Matt smiled, knowing, evening without having seen it first hand, that her statement was true. He couldn't help but imagine her punching her way through New York. It dawned on him that like Kilgrave, and even Fisk, she could have used her abilities to garner power and control and respect. While she couldn't coerce those around her to do her bidding or buy an army with an unlimited supply of money, strength - unbelievable strength - could be used to induce fear. And people who were afraid usually did anything asked of them.

That she had never done so, that she had never thought of giving in to the darkness he could only assume Kilgrave left in his wake, made him admire her in a way that felt foreign.

Matt loved Foggy, loved Karen, hell, he even loved Claire. People who were better than they had any right to be. People who worked hard for those who had less and did so without the aid of a suit or super power.

But what he felt for Jessica was different. Reverence, perhaps. She had been beaten and broken down, stripped of herself and cobbled back together bit by bit, and yet the power in her punch was reserved for those who deserved it. She didn't threaten people into giving her nice things, or even a free drink at the bar, she threatened those who threatened others. She did good, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

And now she needed him to help her, protect her, even if only for one night. Matt could not refuse that offer.

"I know where we can go," he finally told her.

"Then let's go," she replied. He heard her rummaging around in her pockets, ostensibly looking for money to pay, but she didn't find any. "Don't forget to tip," she said before slipping out of the booth toward the bathroom.

Fishing a ten dollar bill from his back pocket and laying it on the table, he was suddenly overcome with a feeling of unease. The sidewalk outside was covered in a slick layer of rain; a steady stream had been falling since they sat down. Matt could hear the barely formed puddles part as heavy boots stepped in them, trudging their way to the front door.

Quickly and quietly, he moved from the booth to the back, following the sound of Jessica's finally relaxed heartbeat. He was about to disrupt it again.

"They're here," he told her, as she open the bathroom door. Without thinking, she took hold of his hand and ran to the kitchen. The cook was sleeping in the corner, sitting upright in a rickety chair, his feet propped on a milk crate. Jessica maneuvered around him as his light snoring perked Matt's ears.

Using a fraction of her force, Jessica kicked the back door open, rust cracking, the chain lock breaking. Her hand still intertwined in Matt's, she led a mad dash through the back alleyway and out into the darkened morning.

"They're following us!" Matt shouted to her, his voice shaking, his breathing laboured as he ran behind her.

Jessica was aware that no one knew Hell's Kitchen better than Matt Murdock. Even without the full use of his eyes, he knew every corner, every alley. That knowledge is what led her to rely on him when it came to a hideout. She was sure he had a favourite perch somewhere, an abandoned training facility, or even an old love nest they could catch a few hours of sleep in. And even though she hadn't seen their would-be attackers, she begrudgingly trusted that only Matt could get them to safety.

Through the repeated chorus of rain, she yelled, "You lead!"

Moving ahead of her, listening to droplets pat, pat, pat the alleyway, allowing them to illuminate the world around him, Matt hurriedly ran on. With Jessica in tow he didn't want to go too fast or use the moves that had become a signature of his - the moves Jessica had once captured on her camera. Instead, he ran at a pace he felt she could match - he ran until the diner was a memory.

As the rain slowed, Matt reached their destination. He stopped, allowing Jessica to catch her breath, as the smell of whiskey escaped her pores.

"Here?" she asked, panting. Looking up, taking in the double spires above her, Jessica muttered, "This is a bad idea."

Matt walked around the side of the building, along a barely used path, his hands grazing the wet brick on either side. As the walkway opened it revealed a small house, darkened and still. Matt knocked on its door, a light almost immediately clicked on inside.

Jessica pushed her soaked hair out of her face, her body heavy with rain water, her breathing still hard and tired. She watched as Matt knocked again.

From behind the wooden door they both heard a man say, "Who is it?"

"It's Matt Murdock," Matt replied. "And I need your help Father Lantom."


	13. Act Thirteen

His hands found her waist. Hers wrapped around his neck. They came together, naked skin glistening with sweat. Hurriedly his hands ran over her ass, lifting her in the air. She instinctively wrapped her legs around him, her thighs tightening against his middle, her head thrown back.

He grabbed a handful of her wild black hair as he thrust her against the wall. She matched in kind, her long fingers running through his dark strands, massaging his scalp. As they fumbled over one another touching every bare spot, their mouths found target after target.

First his on her neck. Then hers on his earlobe. Kissing, sucking, biting - they forced moans out of each other, deep and raw. As she moved to kiss him on the lips, her own already slick and wet, he cupped her face, squeezing hard.

"Tell me you love me," he commanded, his voice low yet rhythmic.

"I love you," she said without hesitation.

"Tell me you will never leave me."

"I will never leave you."

"Now tell me you'll do _anything_ for me."

She faltered, stumbling on her reply.

"Tell me!" Kilgrave shouted, his hand moving from her face to her neck. "Tell me."

XXXXXXX

Jessica Jones woke up, her heart racing, her head spinning, her body covered in a thin layer of sweat. She was panting, her arms momentarily flailing as if to strike the man who had his fingers around her throat. But it was just a nightmare. The same nightmare she'd been having for almost two years. There was no fighting a figment of her imagination, no matter how real and alive he now seemed to be.

XXXXXXX

"Your friend is awake," Father Lantom remarked nonchalantly, not hearing what Matt Murdock heard, not understanding that she was afraid rather than restless.

Jessica was sleeping in the rectory bedroom. It was small, dark, and devoid of distraction. And it was just on the other side of a thin sheet of drywall. Matt knew that once her breathing steadied there would be nothing to stop her listening to every word they were saying.

"More coffee," Father Lantom offered, crossing to the small kitchen less than five feet away.

Matt had been sitting with him for the last three hours. He had convinced Jessica to sleep while he took watch. She had protested, mildly, but even if he had wanted to Matt could not sleep. He suspected he wouldn't sleep for some time to come.

As Father Lantom poured another helping of lukewarm coffee into Matt's mug he sighed.

"I'm sorry," Matt replied, guilt washing over him like the good Catholic he was.

"Matthew, there is nothing to apologize for."

Matt knew he meant it, but it was still hard for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen to hear, let alone believe.

"Where will you go after you leave here?" Father Lantom asked, finding his place in the chair opposite Matt. It was a question he had asked earlier that morning, but Matt had shrugged it off and Lantom didn't press. But as the sunlight began to bleed into the front window they both knew it was time to formulate a plan.

"Perhaps you should leave the city," Father Lantom suggested, but they both knew Matt could not leave. Even his own death hadn't kept him away for long.

"I have to stay," Matt told him resolutely.

"And your friend?"

Matt chuckled. "She would never leave. She's not a quitter."

"Even if it meant her life?"

"Especially then, Father."

Father Lantom leaned back, thinking. "I suspect, Matthew, that you didn't just come here for shelter. Perhaps you need religious guidance; maybe permission to do the things we both know you're thinking about doing. But that kind of permission doesn't exist."

"I know," Matt replied. "That's why I haven't told you what will need to be done, Father. I don't want to burden you with the knowledge of things to come. Things I know you cannot condone."

"Murder?" Father Lantom asked.

"Maybe," Matt said reluctantly.

"Matthew, it's human nature to seek the approval of God. At least in my line of work. And while I don't think he would approve of either of us right now - of what, I think, we both know could happen - I will say that what you have given this community is immeasurable. He would approve of that."

"But nothing has changed," Matt replied, defeat dripping from his voice.

"You've given people courage and hope. That is not nothing."

"And Wilson Fisk is back out on the streets. This time stronger than ever."

Father Lantom leaned back in his chair as if physically overcome by the moral quandary.

Matt filled the silence. "I think you remember a time I came to you seeking forgiveness-"

"For transgressions you had yet to commit," Father Lantom interjected. Matt knew he remembered; how could he not?

"Well, this isn't like that. I don't think forgiveness is in the cards for me."

"I think someone's reading the Bible too literally," Father Lantom said, taking a sip from his own coffee mug.

"Father?" Matt questioned, confused.

"Matthew, those words were written long before you or I were born, before places like Hell's Kitchen were created."

"But not before vigilantes," Matt said assuredly.

Father Lantom couldn't help but let out a clipped laugh. "Maybe, but something tells me they didn't wear red leather or do high kicks."

"It's a protective armor and I do martial arts," Matt grumbled. Father Lantom ignored his whispered protestations.

"All I mean to say, Matthew, is that things are not as black and white as the Bible would have you believe. I know you know that. Sometimes David does not beat Goliath. Sometimes good men are beaten down."

"Are you saying that if I confide in you what I am prepared to do, you _will_ condone those actions?" Matt asked.

"No. I've never pretended to condone violence. And I certainly will not condone murder. All I will say is that good men are often forced to do things that seem foreign to their nature."

"This is not foreign to me anymore, Father," Matt interjected.

"Perhaps, but what about your friend?"

"What about me?" Jessica said. She was suddenly standing in the small doorway, her hair matted, her shirt wrinkled, her eyes heavy with a longing for sleep.

"Jessica," Matt started, but she cut him off.

"I go to sleep for five minutes and miss all the good stuff," she scoffed, reaching down and taking Father Lantom's coffee cup in hand. She sniffed it, disappointed it was just plain coffee, before sipping some back. "Now, it was kind of muffled through the wall, but it sounded like you were telling Matt he may have to kill someone."

"No, Miss Jones. From what he's told me about this man…"

"Fisk," Matt reminded him.

"I meant the other man," Father Lantom said. Jessica refused to utter his name. "From what I have been told about him, his power, and where it lies now, I feel as if you are the one who will do the killing."

They stood silent for a moment. Jessica was taking it all in. A priest telling Matt Murdock, the blind saviour of Hell's Kitchen, that no matter what he did, no matter how many transgressions he had in his ledger of good and evil, he wouldn't be the one to stop Wilson Fisk. It would be her.

 _How could this Father know that?_ Perhaps because he knew there was only person in that room who had taken a life and it wasn't Matt.

"Jessica, you are not killing Fisk. Or Fisk as Kilgrave. Or anyone," Matt told her. He was mad at Father Lantom, mad that their refuge had turned into a character study of them both. "I was very clear, Father, about what _I_ have to."

"Maybe is what you said," Father Lantom reminded him. "And you haven't done it yet, Matthew. You've been prowling the streets at night, taking out rapists and muggers and killers and not one has died by your hand. I'm sorry, but I don't think you can start now."

Jessica ignored him. "I heard you tell Matt that things are not black and white."

Father Lantom nodded.

"So you understand what must be done to men who can control other people's minds; men who torture and kill?"

"I understand the urge," he told her.

"And we both know Matt understands it," she continued, knowing the whole conversation was making Matt quake. "So maybe he will give in to his dark side. Maybe it will be him and not me. You can't know!"

The nightmare had rattled her; they almost always did. But she couldn't shake the feeling that this priest was telling her Matt was better than her, more pious, more precious, more collected and, therefore, more deserving of forgiveness. She couldn't help but feel Father Lantom was taking a swipe at her core, cutting deep into the centre she let so few people see.

She would kill Fisk, not because she had to, not because justice needed to be done, but because she wouldn't be able to stop herself? That couldn't be true, _could it?_ She hated the thought and shook her head trying to force it loose.

But Matt knew that wasn't what Father Lantom was suggesting. Matt knew Jessica was the stronger of the two.

"No, Miss Jones. I believe you will kill because you won't be able to stand watching Matthew do it."

The chiming of Jessica's cellphone cut through the tension. The caller ID display said: _Trish._

Jessica swiped left to ignore. But within seconds it began to ring again. Reluctantly, Jessica answered. It was 5AM. She was standing in the living room of a priest with a man who came back from the dead only days before. She was trying to wrap her head around the idea that her enemy was now Matt's enemy, literally. And her back was still slick with sweat.

 _Fuck, Trish. Bad timing, or what?_

"Yeah?" Jessica snapped into the phone.

Silence.

"Seriously Trish? This is the worst time to ass dial me."

As Jessica moved her thumb over the red phone icon ready to disconnect, Matt waved his hand about, "Wait, wait, wait."

"What?" Jessica asked, but Matt was already silencing her, grabbing the cellphone from her hands.

Placing it to his ear, Matt listened to the heavy breathing on the other end.

"She's not alone," Matt said.

Without question, Jessica stomped to Father Lantom's door, forcefully whipping it open, causing it to shake violently in it's frame. Matt followed, the cellphone still in his hand.

"Jessica, wait," he whispered, afraid his voice would be heard by those on the other end of the call. It sounded to him as if Trish was breathing hard, perhaps fearfully. The vibrations that surrounded it led him to believe she was in a vehicle, maybe locked in a trunk or stuffed down to the floorboard. He could only imagine her secretly calling Jessica, trying to signal her, trying to get help.

Before he could hear more the call was cut short. He grabbed Jessica's arm mid stride to tell her so, but she turned back and pushed him hard knocking him to the ground.

"When I kill Fisk, it will be because of this!" she screamed. "You got it?"

Matt nodded, collecting himself, but careful not to stand, not to anger her further.

"You come back and you fuck everything up, Murdock! And now I'm four days without sleep, four hours without booze, standing in the yard of a fucking priest who is telling me, what? Huh? What? That I'm a killer? That I'm a killer because you mean something to me?" she was snarling at him, the power in her body nearly making the ground shake beneath her boot clad feet. "Because you don't."

Matt understood why she was upset - more than upset. Father Lantom was reminding her that she cared about more than herself, cared about Matt and his conscience, cared about how he would sleep at night if he did the things she had once had to do.

"I'm going to rescue Trish," she said, her skin crawling as she replayed her nightmare, but with Trish in the role of helpless victim. Jessica couldn't stand to think of what may be happening to her, or how many bones she would have to break to make it stop. As Matt made a move to finally stand and join her, Jessica barked, "And I'm going alone!"

"Jessica…" he began, but she was already running from the backyard, her cellphone still clutched in his hand.

Matt hated knowing Father Lantom was right, but he couldn't kill. And he wasn't sure he would be able to stop Jessica Jones from doing whatever it was she wanted or _needed_ to do.


	14. Act Fourteen

"You should follow her," Father Lantom had said to him as Jessica stormed across the small, wet yard, along the cramped path and out onto the city street.

Matt Murdock had nodded his agreement, but he had no intention of following her. She was seething and being in her orbit could only lead to personal injuries.

So Matt lied to his priest. It wasn't the first time and, regretfully, he knew it wouldn't be the last.

Rolling off the damp lawn, his pants soaked in dew and smelling of freshly cut grass, Matt lumbered down the path himself. He didn't say goodbye or even thank you, but he knew Father Lantom was no stranger to the underbelly of Hell's Kitchen. The confessional booth brought him into contact with all forms of criminal and victim. Matt's own after midnight visit was strange to be sure, but perhaps expected when the streets were littered with danger.

"God bless and good luck," Father Lantom whispered as Matt rounded the corner and walked out of sight.

Matt heard him perfectly.

XXXXXXXX

The text chimed though at 5:49AM: _Meet me on the roof._

The reply came over an hour later: _What roof? Also, fuck off. It's too early!_

By 8:00AM Matt was soaking up the sun on a roof just above 10th Avenue, only blocks away from the hospital. He knew it well. He had almost died on it, and had it not been for Foggy Nelson he might have.

"Really? 6:00AM texts?" Foggy questioned as he stepped out onto the cracked tar, his feet scraping along years of shoddy workmanship.

Matt had noticed that since Foggy took the job with Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz he walked differently. Perhaps he was standing taller, striding longer and stronger. Matt couldn't be sure, but he imagined his newfound swagger was coupled with new suits. Not the baggy, sweat and sriracha stained ones he wore throughout the short lived life of Nelson & Murdock. Since he had little reference, Matt could only picture the mobsters that pressured his dad to throw fights. He hadn't know that's what they were doing when he saw them, but he should have. Their slick pinstripe suits screamed shark.

Foggy was now a shark - one of his own making. He didn't threaten people, sure, but he definitely got things done. If Matt weren't tired and in pain, he might have admitted to Foggy that he was impressed.

"Thanks for coming," Matt told him, a smile slowly forming beneath the bruise Jessica had left on his face.

"Jesus," Foggy exclaimed. "What happened?"

"Jessica Jones."

Matt knew he didn't have to say more. Foggy had read Hogarth's files too. Suddenly, Matt wondered how many people had, how many people thought they knew her.

"She got you good, man."

Foggy dropped his worn leather bag on the ground and found his place next to Matt, leaning on the brick wall and taking in the city. As the bag came to rest at Matt's feet he sighed in relief. There was still something of the old Foggy hanging on.

"It was a misunderstanding," Matt told him, referencing the now purple blotch on his cheek.

"Is that what you're calling it?" Foggy chuckled. "because it looks like she kicked your-"

Matt cut him off. "I need your help."

"I figured." Foggy sighed. "But, I don't know, I thought we could talk for a minute. Like we used to. Have a laugh, have a drink."

"At 8:00AM?"

"Okay, maybe no drink… although it's not the worst idea I've ever had."

Matt smiled again, immediately regretting it as pain lit up his face.

"You were dead, man. And before that you were Daredevil and before that you were lying to everyone," Foggy solemnly reminded him. "It was just hoping we could talk for five minutes like we used to. You know, before there were superheroes and everyone got resurrected."

Matt loved how honest Foggy was. Sure, he would know if his friend was lying, he could read his heartbeat, time the fluctuations of his pulse, hone in on his breathing, but he didn't have to. Matt always knew Foggy was sincere. It was comforting that in all the chaos Fisk's return had brought there were still people who said what they meant and did what they said they would do.

So Matt acquiesced. He talked.

"How are you and Marci?"

"Oh!" Foggy cried, chuckling and choking on his surprise at the same time. "That's the first thing you ask? Come on."

"What?" Matt asked innocently.

"Forget it. Let's talk about death cults or private detectives that can punch like a wrecking ball or whatever."

"Oh, no. Now you have to tell me about you and Marci."

Foggy sighed. Matt could hear his expensive suit rustling as he lifted a hand to run through his dirty blonde hair.

"She wants us to move in together."

There it was again, that smile, followed by a shallow wince.

"Don't smile at me like that," Foggy told him.

"I'm just surprised."

"You're surprised? Hello? I'm the guy who has to get rid of his record collection and start investing in scented candles."

"You don't have a record collection," Matt told him. "And a few scented candles couldn't hurt."

"Hey, man. Not fair. I bet everyone smells weird when you use superpowers to get a whiff of what they ate three days ago."

Matt felt himself relaxing, the brick wall hugging him like the mattress at a five star hotel. His body eased and his fists finally unfurled. Standing beside Foggy he felt, for the first time since he'd returned, that he was home.

"So, are you going to do it?" Matt asked.

"I don't know."

"Is there someone else?"

"What? No. I'm a one woman guy. If I can even get that one woman," Foggy reminded him. "Usually I'm a no woman guy."

"So what's the problem?"

Foggy sighed. "Our five minutes is almost up. You sure you don't want to tell me about how you have the hots for the P.I. before we launch into another end of the city scenario?"

"I don't have the hots for Jessica Jones."

"I might not have super hearing or smelling or whatever, but I know Matt Murdock. And trust me, he's never met a dark, complicated woman he hasn't wanted to bang."

Matt lightly shoved Foggy out from his place against the wall. He stumbled, nearly tripping over his bag. They laughed together as the sun finally leapt above New York's tallest building casting the city in light.

"So?" Foggy questioned once he found his footing again.

"So what?" Matt played dumb, knowing it was not that easy to weasel out of a Foggy Nelson cross examination.

"So spill. I've met Jessica Jones in passing and she doesn't seem like the kind of woman any man would want to mess with. But you? Oh, yeah. I can see you messing with her all over the place."

"Jesus, Foggy," Matt croaked, trying not to picture what form of _messing_ Foggy really had in mind.

"On, no," Foggy started, lightly slapping Matt on the shoulder. "You're not being noble right now by trying to _not_ picture her naked, are you?"

"Foggy, I can't picture anyone naked. I have no frame of reference."

Foggy laughed. "Man, you went blind when you were nine. If my secret magazine collection from that age says anything it's that you definitely know what a naked woman looks like," Foggy joked. "Besides, you've been with more women than… well, anyone I know. So, excuse me for thinking Jessica Jones belongs on that list."

"You make me sound like a sleaze," Matt said.

"Yes, but a blind sleaze," Foggy reminded him. "And one that came back from the dead. Seriously, you can do no wrong where women are concerned if you tell them that."

Matt raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, maybe leave out the back from the dead thing. Which, by the way, is something we still need to talk about."

"I think our five minutes are up," Matt stated sternly.

"So, you're not going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"What's going on with you and Jessica Jones," Foggy restated, this time with a smile across his face. Matt knew he was hoping for good news. Foggy wanted his old friend to be happy, and if Jessica made him that way, Matt knew it's what Foggy longed to hear. He wished he could give that to him, wished her could tell him that two damaged people had found one another and were healing together.

But the reality was bleak, dark, and sadly all too common.

"Jessica and I are working together," Matt said.

"Big case?"

"Sort of. Wilson Fisk is out of prison and he knows that I'm Daredevil."

Matt couldn't help but listen as Foggy's heart skipped a beat.

XXXXXXXX

"Trish!" Jessica screamed as she exited the elevator and ran headlong into Trish's top floor penthouse apartment. Her door was unlocked. Jessica knew it was the point of exit, but maybe not the point of entry for whatever happened just beyond the hall.

It was obvious to Jessica that there had been a struggle of sorts. The leather stools that surrounded Trish's granite kitchen island were toppled on the floor. The coffee table had been smashed, it's glass top shattered and metal legs bent out. Paintings no longer hung on the wall and one section of her floor to ceiling windows had been blown out, the early morning wind ripping through the apartment rustling debris with an eerie whistle.

Jessica closed her eyes, trying to summon her investigator instincts and recreate the fight. The abductors came in from the window, repelling perhaps from the roof just above. They knew they couldn't bypass Trish's security, break through her reinforced door, but how?

Startled, Trish had tried to run, knocking over her stools as she slipped into the kitchen for a weapon or her phone. She must have grabbed her cell, hiding it in a pocket or in the small gap between her breast and the lace of her bra. She must have known the fight would not be won here - especially after she was thrown into the coffee table lodging glass shards in her back.

 _Smart_ , Jessica thought. Smart that she got that phone. Smart the she called her from - where had Matt said she was? A car trunk maybe? Hopefully nowhere worse than that.

Jessica fished her own cellphone out of the back pocket of her dirty jeans. But who could she call? Matt? _Fuck Matt._

He had wanted to think things through before charging in when it was her best friend, her sister. But when it had been about him, his identity revealed, his enemy returning, he was ready to fight. His fists suddenly had a mind of their own.

Slipping the cell back into her pocket Jessica muttered, "Hypocrite."

She thought there was no one there to hear her, but as she turned to the door she encountered the brooding body of Wilson Fisk.

"Hello Miss Jones."


	15. Act Fifteen

**AUTHOR NOTE:** Apologies for my inability to update for the past month or so. As some of you know there was a death in my family and while I initially thought I could keep writing and posting, the grieving process (and everything that entails) proved too large.

But I am happy to say that after much thought and family-time I am back. The chapters will still be short (sorry, I know some of you guys hate that), but the story is large-ish in scope. And, trust me, I have a complete ending in mind.

So if you are still out there and are still reading please, please, please review so I know. And for those of you who have been asking where I've been I want to say, "Thanks for waiting. I hope this will have been worth it."

 **XXXXXXXX**

"They said you would come, but I didn't believe them," Wilson Fisk told Jessica Jones.

He was standing in the doorway surveying the damage his men had left behind and the woman who stood among it all, her leather clad arms crossed in defiance.

Without missing a beat, without showing surprise or even fury Jessica asked, "Who's they?"

"My associates, Miss Jones," he told her, holding his ground. "It seems you've made quite an impression on a few, shall we say, undesirables in Hell's Kitchen."

"Not too undesirable, though. Or the great, _innocent_ , Wilson Fisk wouldn't be working with them, right?" she quipped.

"Sadly, that was the old me. The man who wanted nothing more than to help this neighbourhood, help this city," Fisk sighed and Jessica wondered if he actually bought his own bull. "They said you would come," he continued. "But I thought you were much too clever to fall for such an obvious trap."

Jessica scoffed. "I know it's a trap."

She tilted her head, trying to peer around him. She wondered who was in the hall. She knew Wilson Fisk travelled nowhere alone.

"She's not with me," he told her without following her gaze.

"You're stupid, but not _that_ stupid," she assured him. "I didn't think she'd be with you. I'm here because I want you to take me to her."

"Good. Because as I understand it Mr. Kilgrave used to parade your losses in front of you. I just wanted to be sure you knew that wasn't my style."

Jessica couldn't help but take a step back at the casual mention of Kilgrave, glass crunching under her boots.

"I didn't mean to upset you," Fisk told her and for a moment she almost believed him. Maybe it was the distinct measure of his voice, level and soft, juxtaposed against his massive, intimidating frame. She could see how he moved people to follow him, even without Kilgrave's mind control abilities.

"What do you want?" Jessica finally asked as she collected herself, stepping away from the broken coffee table and one more foot closer to Fisk.

"I think you know-"

Jessica cut him off. "Let's not do that. Let's not be polite, okay? You have Trish. You know about Matt. You want me… for some reason. Let's put it out all out there."

Fisk gave her a half smile and Jessica knew she'd captured his interest.

"Alright, Miss Jones. Let's put it all out there."

He walked into the room, and as his body left the doorway two henchmen popped their heads in. They were prepared to follow him, but Fisk waved them back to the perimeter.

Using his brown leather dress shoe, Fisk pushed aside the glass and broken bits of wood and metal that littered the floor, clearing a path for the stool he set upright. He motioned for Jessica to sit, but she stepped back, taking a tentative seat on the couch armrest, her eyes never leaving him.

With a shrug, Fisk poured himself onto the stool, squaring his shoulders, his serious face returning.

"I have Trish Walker. She's safe. Bruised, but safe. I took her to not only lure you here, but to ensure that once we met you would do as you were told. If not… well, I don't want to think about _if not_ just yet."

Jessica squirmed, a cold shiver travelling up her back.

"And yes, I know Matt Murdock is the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. It wasn't really my intention to uncover such sensitive secrets, but he threatened something… someone I love. He shouldn't have come to the prison. He shouldn't have questioned me. He shouldn't have uttered her name." Fisk's voice began to rise, the vein in his neck, just under the collar of his expensive navy blue button up, bulging. "I warned him!"

Fisk exhaled slowly, closing his eyes, collecting himself. "You see, Miss Jones," he finally said. "I have a network of lawyers and bankers and investigators and criminals. I put them all to work on pulling apart Matt Murdock's life. And thread after thread led to only one conclusion. You know, if only you hadn't been branded a hero by the press, I might have hired you, too."

"You couldn't afford me," Jessica growled.

"I believe I could work a few bottles of whiskey into my budget," he said, showing her he knew about her; maybe he was having her followed, pulling at the threads of her life too.

"So, will you come with me now, Miss Jones? Or do I need some of my associates to help you?"

"You only answered two out of three questions," Jessica snapped.

"There were no questions, only assumptions on your part," he reminded her as she sighed. Fisk shook his head, as if giving in to her exhaustion and let part of his plan unfurl. "I think you know I am in possession of something very precious, something that once had a hold on you. Until it didn't. I want to know how that came to be. How you were able to fight off-"

"Kilgrave's control," Jessica finished.

"Yes."

She chuckled, realizing now how obvious it had been. "You want to experiment on me."

"I want to discover the catalyst to your resistance," he explained.

"I punched a woman so hard in the chest that she died," Jessica told him matter of factly, feeling dirty as the words passed her lips.

"I know that."

 _He really must be investigating me,_ she thought.

"Well, then you know that was it," she continued. "That was the day I said goodbye to him. Now, if you could just lead me to Trish I won't have to kick your ass and those of the boys on the other side of that door."

Fisk smiled again, his teeth showing for the first time, as if revealing a weapon to his enemy. Jessica felt as if he wanted to devour her whole.

"I have no doubt you could kill me, Miss Jones," he told her, but she sensed it was a lie aimed to put her at ease. "But I think you'll agree that you don't know everything there is to know yet. You don't know where Trish Walker is, you don't know who else is in possession of Mr. Kilgrave's abilities and how they will be used, and you don't know what I plan to do with Matt Murdock once we're done here. I would think after your encounter with The Hand you would want to be more informed before punching your way through a problem. I don't think you're interested in the body count rising even higher."

"You just said you wouldn't hurt her," Jessica snarled as she stood, her fist already clenched.

"I said I _haven't_ hurt her, and that's true. Mostly. But I can and will if you don't come with me."

Jessica felt her body relax as the knowledge that she would follow him passed over her. There was nothing she could do.

"So, what? I help you figure out a way to stop… fuck, I don't know, other people like me from resisting your newfound abilities and you use them to take over the city?"

"It's not my intention to lead people who do not want to be led," he told her cryptically.

"Oh, wow. A noble psychopath. This is new," she quipped.

"Shall we go?" Fisk asked, standing and motioning to the door.

"Wait. Why did you call it a possession? A thing?"

Fisk ignored the question.

"Why are you making it sound like a pill you pop or something?"

Again Fisk ignored her, instead walking to the door, seemingly expecting her to silently follow.

"I'm not leaving until you-"

"You will leave with me!" Fisk growled as he whipped around to face her, his eyes black with a rage Jessica suspected was always just beneath the surface.

When she didn't move it became clear to them both that whatever power he possessed she was immune to it's effects.

Panting, trying to regain composure, Fisk grasped the kitchen island for support, as if the act of shouting physically exhausted him.

Jessica wasn't sure what that meant - yet - but she knew enough to know it was a weakness she could hopefully exploit.

"Madame Gao had a penchant for powerful things," Fisk said once his equilibrium had returned.

Jessica stared at him blankly.

He sighed. "The elderly woman you fought. A member of The Hand."

Jessica kept her face blank, but she was reminded of a woman with remarkable strength and telekinetic powers; a woman who refused to stay down when hit.

"You must have wondered how she came to be the way she was."

"Hm, nope," Jessica honestly replied. "I just figured it was an unfortunate side effect of being a member of some mystical asshole club."

"Well, maybe if you cared more to investigate the people you fight, examined their lives before breaking their necks, you would understand."

 _Breaking their necks._ He was talking about Kilgrave. Suddenly she felt her hands around his head, tilting right, hearing bones snap and she shuddered in horror.

But she had studied Kilgrave; she had found out more about him than she had ever wanted to know. If Fisk was investigating her, surely he would know that. But Jessica sensed his double talk was part of a game - she'd seen it before. It was the windup before the lackluster release.

 _He's just trying to get under my skin,_ she told herself. _Don't let him._

"So, if I had done my homework on this Gao I would have found a link between her and Kilgrave long before you busted yourself out of prison?"

"Something like that," Fisk told her. He again motioned for her to follow, and this time she relented, keeping her distance but still walking in his immense shadow as they left Trish's apartment.

Waiting for the elevator, his thug's on either side, Fisk, almost as afterthought, said, "Oh, and I _walked_ out of prison."

XXXXXX

Less than 15 minutes later they were standing outside the same warehouse Jessica had been brought to only a few nights before. While the entirety of that evening was cast in a bloody haze, she remembered enough to instantly recognize a black van parked near the garage door entrance. It's front bumper was dented inward - the damage seemingly permanent, while Jessica's own shoulder and ribs had long since healed.

"You realize you can't keep me here," Jessica said as they stepped out of Fisk's SUV.

Fisk didn't respond and Jessica sighed knowing that while they might not be able to hold her, they were holding Trish. She needed to go inside and perhaps sit for a test or two, before breaking Trish out of whatever mess she'd gotten her into. Jessica shook her head. It was always Trish. She was always bearing the brunt of whatever force Jessica allowed into her life.

For a fleeting moment, Jessica resolved to ensure Trish was never caught up in her mistakes or missions again. But she quickly remembered Matt and how he had once tried the same thing with those in his life: the lawyer friend, the pretty blonde, that bitch with the blades crushed under Midland Circle. Matt hadn't been able to keep them safe from the evil he let into his life. What made her think she was any different?

"Matt's been here before. He's kicked the shit out of your men, even if they were hopped up on whatever mind control power you've got going on," Jessica said. "He's going to find us and when he does-"

"I know he will, Miss Jones," Fisk said, interrupting her. "I'm counting on it."


	16. Act Sixteen

"Trish," Jessica Jones said, her voice rasped with worry.

Her best friend was standing just out of reach, held by a pair of thugs, their hands visibly digging into the pale skin of Trish's upper arms. The warehouse lights, hung precariously from the high ceiling, were covered in grim and thick layers of dust, casting shadows on her face, but Jessica could see fresh cuts along her hairline and on her hands, dried blood on the corners of her lips, staining her white cloth gag. She could also feel the anger that radiated off Trish in waves. Like Matt, she was reading the people around her in hues of burning red.

"She's fine," Wilson Fisk returned.

Jessica nodded her silent assurance to Trish that she would get her out of there and to Jessica's relief Trish replied in kind.

"Shall we begin?" Fisk asked, but it was a question with only one answer. _Yes._

"What do you need?" Jessica said, begrudging her agreement with him, her agreement to help him with whatever plan he had tucked tightly into his sleeve.

Fisk motioned to a man standing just beyond Trish. He was small, quivering, and in the darkness of the warehouse Jessica hadn't noticed his presence. He stepped forward and Jessica could see he was already wearing surgical gloves.

"Blood, saliva, hair, speech sample, brain wave scan," the man said. Jessica knew he was some sort of doctor, or perhaps more aptly a mad scientist, the one helping Fisk traverse the road to ruining the city yet again.

"Want me to pee in a cup too?" Jessica quipped as she slid her leather jacket off and began rolling up her sleeve.

The Scientist didn't hesitate. He grabbed a needle from the nearby table and approached. It took everything Jessica had not to take the needle from him and stab it in his neck. But Fisk was watching and Trish was still bruised and gagged.

Sighing, Jessica stretched out her arm and waited.

Once her blood had been drawn, saliva swabbed, and hairs plucked Jessica realized the Scientist had no clue what made her immune to Kilgrave's control. It was a mystery beyond them both.

She watched silently as he sighed and muttered to himself, careful not to ruffle an already impatient Wilson Fisk. Every 10 seconds the Scientist turned his head, nervously spying the disapproval in his boss' eye. The tension in the air fueled Jessica. While her submission to these psychopaths was embarrassing, their ignorance was intoxicating. She was earning back the upper hand.

Jessica silently thanked the universe for the gift, as the Scientist flailed wildly looking for a cause and a cure.

"These results will take time and I need set up the next exam," the Scientist meekly said to Fisk, who nodded his begrudging approval.

"Take them," Fisk said to the men holding Trish, and suddenly Jessica felt hands on her own arms as well.

Without much effort Jessica pulled herself free. The men returned, grabbing hold tighter, but Jessica wrenched them off again, one stumbling backward to the concrete floor. She couldn't help herself. It was habit.

"Choke her," Fisk said, his eyes levelled on Trish Walker. The man on Trish's left moved his hands to her neck and seemingly without thinking, squeezed tight.

Jessica had experienced this too many times before. She knew what was happening, she knew what she had to do. She raised her arms in an act of surrender, her eyes pleading with Fisk to relent.

"Release her," he told the man holding Trish, and the man let go. Trish coughed in pain, her gag wet with silva as she desperately tried to fill her lungs with air. The wheezing gasps and gulps she made forced Jessica to hold her position. She didn't want anything else to happen to her friend, her sister. She didn't want to be the cause of her pain.

"Take them to the back," Fisk said and all three men with guns, and the Scientist, began moving Jessica and Trish toward the darkest corner of the warehouse. "Not you, Z."

The Scientist stopped, and Jessica watched his unblinking face as she was led away.

XXXXXXXX

"What is going on?" Trish asked, her voice hoarse and weak. Jessica tossed the gag to the ground and reached out to touch the red mark still visible on the pale of Trish's neck, but then felt better of herself and stepped away in shame.

She moved to the only free chair in the room, sitting, slumping forward, her head in her hands.

"Seriously, Jess," Trish croaked.

Jessica sighed. "We're waiting."

"Waiting for what? Just punch those assholes and get us the hell out of here."

"I can't," Jessica told her.

"Jesus, Jessica. I don't know if you noticed, but I was kidnapped and just recently nearly choked to death."

"Of course I noticed."

"Well, then what are you waiting for? Huh? Because I don't want to find out what happens when Wilson Fisk tells those guys to kill me."

Jessica lifted her head, black hair strewn across her face, the sleep she wasn't getting tattooed under her eyes. "You know who Wilson Fisk is?" Jessica asked.

"Yeah, he was all over the news a few years ago," Trish said, finding a spot on the wall and leaning back. "Daredevil captured him. I mean, Ma-" she caught herself before continuing.

"Matt caught him," Jessica finished.

"Jessica," Trish hissed.

"He knows that Matt's the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. He knows about The Hand and everything that happened at Midland Circle. And he knows about Kilgrave… and me."

"What?" Trish rasped. "How?"

"I don't know. I think maybe he's been having me followed or something," Jessica replied before chuckling. "Or he watches the news too. It's not as if Kilgrave's death was a state secret."

Trish ran a bruised hand over her forehead, pressing on the tension just above her right temple. Jessica was familiar with the move. It was a habit Trish picked up from her mother - thankfully it was the only one.

"So he knows about Matt," Trish finally said. "What does that have to do with me? Or us?"

"He told the guy to choke you and he did."

"And?"

"And he did it without question," Jessica told her, exacerbated by Trish's inability to see what was going on.

"That's what bad guys do, Jess."

"No, this is different."

"I don't understand," Trish told her, fear resonating in her voice. "How is this different?"

"Because it's about to be Kilgrave all over again!" Jessica shouted. Without fully realizing it, Jessica had stood and was now holding the splintered remains of the chair back in her hand. She dropped them and they clattered to the floor.

"Explain it to me," Trish told her, her voice levelling as her eyes surveyed Jessica's swift destruction of the chair. "And don't yell."

Jessica couldn't help but smile. There was a time and place to give her shit for being so cold, being so angry, and Trish knew it wasn't now. Jessica loved that about her.

"Fisk is somehow using Kilgrave's mind control abilities. When he told that guy to choke you, he responded because he really didn't have a choice. Same as the guys who kidnapped me and then attacked me and Matt at his place."

"You were kidnapped?" Trish asked, stunned.

"I told you this the other day," Jessica said, vaguely remembering a talk she had with Trish in her trashed apartment. _Shit,_ she thought. _My fucking apartment is still ransacked._

"No, you didn't tell me that," Trish told her, but Jessica was already moving on in her head, trying to find another way to prove to Trish that Kilgrave was, in essence, back.

"These men, that creepy scientist, they don't work for him," Jessica said. "They can't help themselves." She sighed. "We both know what that's like."

"No. That doesn't make any sense," Trish replied. "If he could control people he could have just told me come here. He didn't need to send an army through my window."

Jessica shook her head, not quite understanding what Trish meant. But then her mind rewound to the scene at Trish's apartment, to the destruction and obvious struggle. Trish had been forced to leave, without a smile on her face... something Kilgrave never would have done. Not to mention that calling that kind of attention to himself, right after a prison escape, seemed unlikely if Fisk could have made Trish comply without force.

As soon as those thoughts entered her mind, as soon as she began questioning her resolve that Fisk was truly a new incarnation of Kilgrave, the image of those men jumping willingly from Matt's roof to their certain death filled Jessica. She shuddered with confusion.

 _What is going on?_

"If Fisk is having you followed or looked into or whatever, he would know that I'm not immune. He would know I'm not like you and he would have just ordered me here."

"I know, but those assholes..."

"Are just assholes," Trish told her. "Any reactionary movement on their part is probably because they're dumb, not under mind control."

Trish wasn't looking at Jessica anymore. She had begun searching the windowless room for another exit, feeling the darkened walls for weaknesses they could exploit.

"But you just saw them take my blood, Trish. And the men who attacked me and Matt, they…" Jessica couldn't wrap her head around it. "And that scientist guy tried to push us in here when Fisk told his men to. He had to know Fisk wasn't talking to him."

"The man is a gorilla. If he says jump you don't bother to ask how high. You do it. And that has nothing to do with Kilgrave."

Jessica didn't reply. She was deep in thought.

Trish walked toward her and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Whatever Fisk told you, it was a lie. He doesn't have Kilgrave's abilities."

"No, but-"

"Jess, Kilgrave is dead. It's over. It's been over."

"It's never over," Jessica told her softly.

Trish remained silent. Jessica knew she didn't know what to say.

What if Trish was right? What if Fisk had lied? Madam Gao? Who was she anyway? What could she have gotten from a limp body with a broken neck?

But if Kilgrave was dead, his power buried with him, then what did Fisk want with her blood and saliva and hair?

Sensing Jessica was about to reel again, Trish shook her forcefully. "We don't have time to figure this out now. I need you to help me," Trish told her, snapping her back to the present. "I need you to get us out of here."

Jessica nodded, before remembering Fisk's words outside the warehouse: _I'm counting on it._

"Matt's coming," Jessica whispered.

Trish scoffed. "Well, I think you can take these dicks, but if you need backup-"

"No," Jessica said, waving Trish and her near mockery away. "This is where Fisk's lackeys brought me the last time. Matt rescued me. Fisk knows he'll come for me again."

Trish couldn't reply, stunned by the fact that Jessica Jones had once needed rescue.

"I think Fisk is right, Trish. I think Matt's coming."

"So we can't leave?" Trish questioned.

"Where's your cell phone?" Jessica asked.

"They found it as soon as I arrived," Trish told her.

"Dammit!"

"Well, can't we just escape and call him from a payphone?"

"No. Dammit because I don't know his number or that Nelson guy's or Claire's."

"How do you usually contact him?" Trish wondered aloud.

Jessica lightly chuckled. "I don't really. He just kind of shows up." She sighed. "And now, if we leave, he'll be walking into an ambush."

"He's walking into an ambush either way," Trish said. "But if we leave, then it's an ambush with us on the outside."

"If we're on the outside we can't help him," Jessica told her.

Trish shook her head. "So, what? Now we wait for our rescuer to come and then we rescue him? Is that what you're saying? Because that can't be the plan."

Jessica didn't respond.

"Seriously, Jess. That can't be the plan."

Even though she was more confused than before, more unsure of Fisk's power or lack thereof, Jessica smiled. She was ready to fight alongside Matt again. She was yearning for it.

"A payphone?" Jessica suddenly asked. "Really?"


	17. Act Seventeen

"Is this all you have?" Matt Murdock asked Foggy Nelson as he pulled the waist of his too-large cargo pants left and right. "I could fit another person in here."

"Hey!" Foggy yelped. "I'll have you know I've been eating really well lately."

"You had mozzarella sticks and beer last night," Matt told him.

"Don't do that, man. It's really messed up."

Matt laughed.

"And dairy and wheat are both on that chart they teach you in school. It's like the number one and two things I should be eating, so…" Foggy let his voice drift, not knowing how else to defend his terrible habits and the state of his old wardrobe.

"Maybe if you had wanted a suit."

"I know, but fighting in a three piece is always a bit weird," Matt joked.

The two had spent the day together, walking the streets of Hell's Kitchen, or rather the alleyways, searching for information on Wilson Fisk's prison escape. Frustrated that he couldn't shake down the criminal element around them, his suit abandoned the night Fisk's men stormed the loft, Matt let Foggy do most of the talking. He was, after all, supposed to be dead. And in the bright sun of New York City, Matt couldn't risk being spotted by a former client, college classmate, or one night stand.

After hours of investigation, including a stop at Trish Walker's luxury apartment left smashed and torn, Foggy had called a few contacts he had at the DA's office, but no one would confirm Fisk's prison escape or even speculate on his current whereabouts.

Dejected, they'd retreated to Foggy's apartment, warm and safe, if only for a moment.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Foggy asked, watching Matt try on a long sleeved black Henley.

Matt was sure his friend knew the answer was _yes, of course yes._ But Foggy had to ask it, had to do anything he could to keep Matt from venturing into unknown dangers ill prepared.

"Fisk's out there somewhere."

"Yeah, but we don't know where," Foggy reminded him.

"I have a good idea," Matt told him, layering borrowed socks, one over the other, to create a snug fit inside Foggy's heaviest, deadliest boots.

"You have a good idea?" Foggy asked, stunned. "Um, hello. We were out all day and now you tell me."

"I just thought of it."

"Bullshit."

"Alright, I thought of it when we were at Trish's place."

"Trish Walker?" Foggy questioned. "The one you think was kidnapped. The one Jessica Jones went after."

"Why do you say her name like that?" Matt asked as he slammed his cotton clad foot into the boot.

"Like what?"

" _Jessica Jones_ ," Matt replied. "I don't know. You make her sound like a client or something."

"Technically, she is."

"You know what I mean, Foggy," Matt stated, his sly smile returning. It hurt less in the evening, maybe because he'd been smiling with Foggy all day - despite the dire circumstances, Foggy just had that ability, the ability to put people at ease. Or maybe it was because the bruise Jessica had left was healing. Matt cursed that thought. Strangely, he wanted it to last.

"You say her name like you're removed from her. I mean, this morning you wanted me to propose marriage and now-"

"No, no. This morning I wanted to make sure my good friend Matt was happy… and maybe getting laid," Foggy quipped.

Matt laughed.

"But that was before you told me about Fisk and Kilgrave and mind control and whatever else Jessica Jones has gotten you into."

"You know she isn't the cause of any of this," Matt replied. "I know you know that."

Foggy sighed. "I don't know what I know. I just don't want you to die again."

XXXXXXXXXX

 _Fuck it. He's not coming._

"Let's get out of here," Jessica stated, standing from her spot on the cold, hard concrete floor.

"Finally," Trish exclaimed. "We've been waiting for over an hour."

Jessica peered down at her friend, a look of stern resolve on her face. She reached out her hand and pulled Trish up off the ground. She was done waiting to be saved.

"So what happened to needing to be here for when Matt storms the building so we can fight alongside him?" Trish asked mockingly.

"Do you want to leave or not? Because I can just as easily-"

"No, no," Trish interjected, saving herself from hearing a cruel quip, the kind Jessica rattled off when she was angry or annoyed, the kind Trish wasn't in the mood for. "Let's just figure out a way out of here."

Even without Matt's super hearing, Jessica was privy to the flutters of activity on the other side of the room's only door. Earlier she could hear the boom of Fisk's voice, but now it was just periodic shrieks and squeals from the Scientist and snickers from the guards who were easily entertained. She assumed Fisk had left - for the night? For an hour? Jessica wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

"I think everyone's distracted," she told Trish as she backed away from her listening post at the door.

Feeling the walls, just as Trish had earlier done, Jessica looked for weakness in the structure, wondering if she could punch her way through the brick and concrete to the street outside.

"Not so distracted that they won't notice a Jessica shaped hole in the wall" Trish said, close on her heels, her hands trailing behind Jessica's.

"Well, all we need is a few seconds. Once I break through, you run, okay?" Trish nodded in agreement. "I'm serious, Trish. Don't wait for me, don't look back. Just run."

"Just run. Got it," Trish told her with a smile.

"Okay," Jessica replied, a smile creeping onto her own face. "Now back up."

Trish obediently moved back to the door just as it opened, revealing three thugs with guns. She yelped as one grabbed her around the waist, pulling her into the dingy hallway.

"Trish!" Jessica screamed.

As the men attempted to drag Trish away, Jessica picked up a broken splinter of the wooden chair at her feet and lunged toward the one on the right. In a flurry of rage, she stabbed the wood into his shoulder and he screamed as his gun clanked to the floor. Swiftly moving to the next man, Jessica brought wild array of fists to his face before she tossed him against the wall. But within those few seconds, Trish had been pulled away at gunpoint, further into the warehouse. Jessica gave chase, her focus squared on the man holding Trish.

"Jess!" Trish yelped, as she tried to wriggle free from her attacker.

As they moved into the main area of the warehouse, the faux lab of the mad scientist, Matt Murdock made his presence known as the guttural scream of an unseen thug echoed through the shadows.

With everyone's interest captured, Matt finally came into view. Jessica could see he wasn't wearing his red rubber getup. Instead he was clad in black cargo pants and a black Henley, his eyes covered by someone else's scarf. For a second she was jealous… but only a second.

"Where the fuck have you been?" she growled.

"You're welcome," he replied, and Jessica imagined him winking at her underneath his makeshift mask.

She scoffed and pushed him back, not to punish him, but to save him from the onslaught of a crowbar wielded by one of Fisk's men. Jessica caught the bar and yanked it from his hands, forcing the man the ground with a grunt.

Distracted, the man holding Trish let go. She turned on her heel and kicked him in the groin. As he fell, Jessica rushed him, kicking his gun across the concrete floor and out of reach, before bringing her heavy boot down on his face.

Various cliques of thugs, waiting near the van outside or in the back room, and those holding guard on the roof began converging on the centre on the warehouse. Their hurried footsteps alerted Matt to the heightened danger and he instinctively reached out for Jessica, but she was already ushering Trish to the nearest exit.

"Not that way," Matt hissed, sensing the hoard approaching from the other side of the door.

Begrudgingly, Jessica listened and pulled Trish back.

"Which way?" Trish asked.

"Where's Fisk?" Matt countered.

"Gone," Jessica told him as she scanned the room, watching men pour onto the upper balcony of the warehouse, their fists ready, some with guns already drawn.

"We're about to be surrounded," Trish said, but Matt ignored her.

"Gone where?" he asked, still referring to Wilson Fisk.

"I don't know," Jessica told him.

Without warning, Matt rushed one of the gunman approaching from the right, disarming him with a swift kick the the knee. He fell and Matt kicked the machine gun away before beginning an assault of punches on the man's face. Between each bone crushing hit he screamed, "Where's Fisk?"

Trish rolled her eyes. Jessica knew it was involuntary, perhaps meant to be unseen, but she caught it and immediately felt regret. Regret that she had made Trish wait for a man that clearly had an agenda of his own.

Jessica swiftly walked to Matt's side and gripped his shoulder hard, seizing up his right hand and halting his onslaught of punches. Matt groaned under the weight of her strength.

"This is not why you're here," she told him.

"I need to find him."

"No, you needed to find me. I'm the key to whatever bullshit is going on," Jessica began.

"And now you've found her!" Trish shouted from behind them. "So, can we please get the fuck out of here?"

The tone of Trish's voice, the panic, cut through Matt's exterior and briefly broke him free of his quest to find Fisk.

He nodded in agreement, and Jessica's grip on him became a helping hand, forcing him to stand by her side. She motioned to the men rushing towards them from the stairs, and somehow under his borrowed scarf, Matt understood and took up position to fight them one by one.

Trish grabbed the fallen crowbar and began swinging it at anyone who came her way, connecting with several shoulders and hands, the slap of metal on skin saturating the air.

Suddenly, gunfire pierced the din around them, metal clinking on the walls and floor. Errant bullets hit bad guys as Matt began strategically moving his body behind them, regretfully using them as unwitting shields, before he dove behind a stack of steel crates. Trish and Jessica hid themselves behind the only car parked inside the warehouse, flinching each time a bullet pierced it's outer shell.

"We have to get out of here!" Jessica cried to Matt, as he too cowered away from the gunfire. She scanned the room, looking for a clear way to the door. She knew she could take a few gunshots and survive. Her healing abilities were unmatched. But she didn't want to test the theory with a shot to her head or heart. She didn't want to barrel forward just yet.

"I think we can make it," Trish said, her comment directly conflicting with Jessica's own thoughts. Jessica loved how brave, how bold, Trish was - but even she couldn't outrun a bullet.

"I don't know," Jessica replied as the bangs of gunfire increased around them. "I think we should-"

"Shit!" Trish suddenly cried out, as a bullet fragment or stray piece of debris ripped through the car and cut open her arm. A flesh wound, Matt knew, hearing the minor tear and smelling the trickle of blood, but the act inflamed Jessica.

In a moment of rage she flung Trish the 15 feet toward the safety of the steel crates and into Matt's arms.

"Jess, no," Trish pleaded, reading the room, knowing what was coming next.

Jessica stood in defiance and picked up the car and in one swift motion, throwing it against the various gunmen who had lined themselves against the opposite wall. The makeshift firing squad was crushed and Matt was certain a few had perished. He had never experienced the anger that radiated off of Jessica before and hoped he never would again. But he knew he was holding her only family in his arms, her only real connection to the world outside her powers. He understood how the need to protect that could make someone do unthinkable things.

Before he could contemplate on her actions any longer, Jessica had hurled herself against the closest wall, thrusting her body into brick and mortar, forcing it to crack and crumble around her form. In less than a minute, she'd made a hole big enough for them to fit through with ease.

Taking his cue, Matt used his own body to protect Trish against anyone foolish enough to continue firing on them and he ran with her in his arms outside of the warehouse.

Trish groaned, holding her bleeding arm. Jessica was already pulling off the bottom edge of her plaid shift to use as a bandage.

"We gotta go," she said, tying the fabric tightly around Trish's wound before placing her arm around Trish's shoulders.

"You go," Matt told them both. "I'll find out where Fisk went."

He turned away, running back to the warehouse, his feet crashing on the pavement so hard the sound felt like the boom of a jackhammer in his head.

Jessica called after him, "Matt! No!" He ignored her.

Inside, several men were picking themselves up off the ground, but they were in no condition to fight. Blood oozed from cuts on their faces and hands and Matt could hear the rhythmic cracking of broken bones echoing throughout the space. The remainder of Fisk's charge must have fled. Where there once stood dozens now only five or 10 remained.

Marching to the first crippled lackey, Matt felt something crunch under his boot. It was a vile. And it wasn't alone. Scanning the concrete floor, Matt noticed tiny glass shards nearly everywhere. An overturned table in the corner surrounded by more smashed scientific equipment peeked his interest.

 _What was going on here?_

Reaching out, he grabbed a bloodied man lying on the ground and asked aloud, "What are doing here? What's all this for?"

The man only groaned, his body limp. Matt knew he had been hit when Jessica threw the car. He could feel his life draining away. "Where's Fisk?" he growled, hoping to find out before it was too late.

But as the man coughed blood onto Matt's gloved hand, he was overcome with a sense of deja vu. He had been there once before… not in the literal sense, not when he had been there only two nights before saving Jessica. He had once ignored the pleas of his friends. He had once let his emotions get the better of him and abandoned those who needed him. Those failings had allowed The Hand to flourish and, in the end, brought a building down on him. He knew he couldn't make the same mistake again. He couldn't let his past with Fisk run his future.

Gently releasing the man, Matt stood and turned around.

"I've called the cops," Jessica told him. He wondered how long she had been there. "And an ambulance."

Matt could smell salt in the air. Perhaps she had been crying. He didn't want her to see anymore carnage and so he quickly followed her as she turned away.

Within a minute they were down the block in an alleyway. Trish was leaning against the wall playing with tattered edges of her faux bandage.

"Don't do that again," Jessica told Matt, once she knew they were relatively safe.

"Rescue you?" he asked as he removed the scarf, his eyes adjusting to the space around him, Jessica's angry, reddened face coming into partial view.

Jessica scoffed and walked away, slowing moving further down the alley, searching for a hideout on the other side.

"Leave her," Trish finally said, when she thought Jessica couldn't hear.

"What?" Matt asked.

"Don't leave her again," Trish told him. "Don't sacrifice yourself like you did the last time."

"That's not what I was-"

"Hey, you don't have to explain anything to me," Trish interjected. "But I know Jessica and she hates a martyr."

Matt softly chuckled. "Really? Because she sure seems to love sacrificing herself."

"Yeah. Exactly."

Trish eased herself off the wall and silently followed Jessica into the darkness.


	18. Act Eighteen

"I don't like this," Trish Walker told her best friend, her sister, Jessica Jones. Her eyes were pleading with Jessica, asking her _let me stay._

Jessica exhaled, a long release of anguish, before replying, "I can't focus on Fisk and worry about you."

Trish nodded, knowing she was right, but still hating the circumstances. "But there's no guarantee sending me away means he won't find me."

"I know," Jessica said, hoping with everything she had that Trish was wrong. "But this is the only option we have."

Trish opened the passenger side door of the black van and slide inside.

"Watch the blood," Foggy Nelson told her, referring to Trish's arm wound. It was still wrapped in a torn piece of Jessica's plaid shirt, but the oozing had long since stopped. "My mom will kill me if I get blood in her car."

Trish gave a half smile, her mouth sore from the gag that had been tightly tied around her face just a few hours before. "I'll try my best."

Jessica leaned into the open window and whispered to Trish. Trish nodded in reply.

With that, Foggy stepped on the gas and the van began speeding out of view.

"Thanks," Jessica said to Matt Murdock, who had been silently watching the exchange from just behind her left shoulder.

"You're welcome," he replied, wondering how long they would have to watch the place Trish had once been, how long it would be before they could seek shelter themselves.

The van finally made a sharp left, turning out of Hell's Kitchen, making its way far from New York City.

"You had to do it," Matt told her, as if reading her mind, feeling the uncertainty that washed over Jessica.

 _Fuck, he's right._ She hated that.

"Let's go see about a superhero," Jessica finally cracked, turning to face Matt. He smiled.

XXXXXXX

Colleen's dojo was nothing to write home about, save for the immense amount of light that always seemed to pour through it's grimy windows. Jessica Jones suspected the light somehow made what they were practising less bleak; everything was when washed in an orange glow.

Jessica knew the skills learned and relearned within those four walls were too often put to use against bad men in the shadows of Hell's Kitchen. She knew Danny was keeping his promise to protect Matt's city.

She had seen him a few times, crouched on the edge of a building, peering into the night, searching for someone to save. But without the aid of Matt Murdock's special skills Danny had to rely on his eyes. He could only help those he could see and on some nights Jessica could tell he wasn't seeing much at all.

Maybe he didn't want to, not really, because the real danger wasn't on some crumbling rooftop but down in the alleys or out on the stoops or inside the bars Jessica called home. She'd broken up a fight or two since Matt's _death._ Sometimes it felt like her duty to a fallen friend, but more often than not she just wanted to hit something.

"Iron Tool," Jessica quipped as she and Matt entered the dojo. "You up for a fight?"

Eager as always, Danny Rand leapt from his lotus pose on the floor and nearly barrelled into Jessica's arms. She promptly pushed him away.

"Oh my god," Danny said, his heart tapping rapidly in his chest, perking Matt's ears. "Colleen and I were so worried about you guys."

Matt knew he was telling the truth.

"About _us_?" Jessica asked, her emphasis on the last part, the part that insinuated they were a duo, a team, a couple.

"You guys dropped off the grid days ago," he told her. "Luke went to your place and it was trashed. I went to yours and it was the same."

"Yeah, well it's been a rough ride," Jessica replied, "But we need your help."

The words tasted salty in her mouth.

Danny smiled, big, bright, and sincere. Jessica wished Matt could really see it.

"We figured you would," Danny said, walking over to a chest in the far corner of the room. "So I made sure to grab this."

As Danny opened the lid, the creak of ancient wood echoing in the air, he revealed the Devil mask sitting atop a mound of red rubber.

"My suit," Matt said. Jessica still hadn't grasped the complexities of what Matt could and could not see, how he was able to analyze the world around him, but in her mind she imagined him sniffing out the sweat and dried blood that surely penetrating the suit. She imagined him smell testing his way through life.

"Yeah," Danny replied. "I just couldn't leave it there."

"Thank you," Matt told him. "Really."

Before Matt could move out of arm's reach, Danny hugged him. He could hear Jessica sigh.

XXXXXXXXX

After sharing the pizza Luke Cage had brought when he arrived and watching Jessica finish a six pack of cheap beer, the group settled into old routines: cruel quips at Danny's expense, endless questions about what each could and could not do, and a general distrust of anyone's plan of action. Everything had to be talked out. Everything had to be analyzed.

It had been torture on Jessica the first time around. Perhaps things should have been different now, after going through so much together, after defeating The Hand. But it was all the same.

Skepticism tinged with respect and fear marked by a call to action. The contradictions would make anyone else's head spin, but during her second serving Jessica found it all oddly comforting. Tipping the last can of beer, hoping a few errant drops would pelt her tongue, she felt at ease among the men around her. Despite herself, she liked being a member of a team. Sometimes.

"Had enough?" Luke asked her as she easily crushed the can in her hand.

 _Ugh,_ she immediately thought. This wasn't one of those times.

"I just don't get it," Danny said, ignoring any conflict between Luke and Jessica that may have been brewing on the other side of the room.

"What don't you understand?" Matt asked patiently.

"Well, actually there are a lot of things I don't get," Danny continued.

"Surprise, surprise," Jessica whispered. Matt smiled.

"But let's just start with this Kilgrave guy. Is he dead or not?" Danny questioned.

Jessica shifted uncomfortably, her boots digging into the hardwood floor. "He's dead."

"Are you sure?" Danny asked.

"I'm sure," she shot back, the look on her face serious enough to silence Danny.

"He's dead, man," Luke offered. "Besides, the way you guys explained it, it doesn't seem like Wilson Fisk is really pulling a Kilgrave after all."

"Pulling a Kilgrave?" Matt chuckled.

"You know, doing all that mind control crap," Luke explained, not catching the mocking tone in Matt's voice. "It sounds to me like he's just trying to make you think that."

"Yeah, I agree," Danny said, but when Jessica glanced his way again, he immediately regretted opening his mouth.

"I saw it with my own eyes," Jessica told them both. "His men are blindly following him."

"Jess, I've been working over guys in Harlem for months now and each one is just a lackey, someone working for an even bigger drug dealer or ams smuggler or human trafficker," Luke told her. "There's always a group ready to blindly follow as long as someone is willing to lead. And from what I've heard and read, Wilson Fisk is a leader."

"Rand Enterprises changed all their background and security protocols once he was arrested. It seems we did business with him," Danny added. "Which means if a sociopathic killer can make billion dollar deals with the leaders of finance he can definitely convince a few petty thieves to follow orders."

Jessica sighed. She felt as if that's all she'd done since arriving. "Firstly, they were not _just_ following orders. Like I told you before," she said, pointing to Matt, unsure if he could tell, "They couldn't help it. I know what that looks like. Secondly, the leaders of finance have never been very particular in who they do business with, so I wouldn't use that as an example of Fisk's considerable sway over people."

"That's my parent's business!" Danny yelled protectively.

"Last I checked, they weren't there," she replied.

"Okay, now," Luke interjected. Matt could tell he was worried a fight a could erupt at a moment's notice.

"What?" Jessica questioned. "That wasn't a dig at your loss, Iron Ass. I was trying to say maybe the people who run their company now aren't as discerning as your parents would have been."

"Fine," Danny said, "But that apology would have sounded a lot better if you hadn't called me Iron Ass."

"Maybe, but it wasn't an apology."

"Okay, let's all just take a step back," Luke cautioned. "I don't want us to argue because I think there's a strong possibility that whatever we're dealing with here is about power not magic."

Jessica laughed. "What makes you think it's not one in the same?"

"Jess," Luke started, but she kept talking, plowing through his skepticism.

"Magic is just another word for power. It's just like Fisk said. We never even thought to investigate that old lady who could pick up concrete boulders. We never thought to question why she or The Hand were they way they were."

"Well, I did," Danny told her. "I mean, Matt and I tried to explain it to you."

"I honestly don't remember that," she replied. Matt smiled, but he could feel the others were not amused by Jessica's selective memory.

"Jesus, Jess," Luke scoffed. "Only paying attention when it matters to you, huh?"

"Whoa," she snapped, surprised by Luke's honest assessment, by his sharp jab. "I'm the one who came back that first night we all met. The one with the damn SUV in her hands to save your sorry asses. So don't even think about giving me a speech about being a team player."

"That's not what I was-"

"Yeah, it was," Jessica told Luke. "I'm listen and I care and I am a member of this shitty team, whether you like it or not. And I'm telling you this is real. The same way you knew Electra was Electra, the same way you knew you were the key to The Hand's plan, and the same way you knew it all connected to those kids in Harlem. I trusted all of you and found myself on the end of a near apocalypse. And now when I need you to trust me where are you?"

"We're here, Jess, it's just-" Luke began, but Jessica had already pulled herself off her spot on the floor and exited the dojo, being sure to toss the crushed beer can behind her. It clanked on the soft wood, as the door slammed in her wake.

"What was that?" Danny asked, standing to retrieve Jessica's waste.

"She's been through a lot recently," Matt replied sheepishly.

Danny grabbed the beer can from the floor and tossed it into the corner garbage. "We've all been through a lot. I'm out every night, doing what I thought you would do," he told Matt. "And Luke's still working on his neighbourhood, still purging crime from the streets day after day."

"I hate to say it," Luke said, "But Jessica's in the wrong here. Sometimes she just gets it in her head that it's all about her. And, well, this time it's not."

"The man who controlled her for over a year, who raped her, who made her kill might be back," Matt told them. Before Luke could interject, he continued. "And I know, as well as you do, that it's not him. But the thought that it could be, just the thought, is killing her. And I don't think any of us have the right to tell her not to be scared."

"Scared," Danny said, chuckling.

"Yeah, scared, Matt replied incredulously. "That's what this is. She's terrified. Can't you tell?"

Luke shook his head, dejected. "I didn't realize. I've never really seen her that way."

Danny found his spot on the floor again, settling back into lotus pose. "Maybe she and Matt are closer," he said, not really understanding the weight of his observation.

Matt could feel Luke's eye on him, but ignored them. There was nothing he could do to assure Jessica's former lover that he wasn't close to her, because Danny was right. Matt knew he and Jessica shared a deep connection, a connection he couldn't really explain. And he knew he had almost jeopardized it and her life when he let her walk away from him, let her pursue Trish and her abductors without him.

 _Fuck, I'm an idiot_ , he thought.

"Excuse me for a minute," Matt said, standing and exiting the training room in search of Jessica.

"Not cool, man," Luke told an oblivious Danny once Matt was gone. "Not cool."

XXXXXXXXX

Matt found Jessica outside, leaning against the building, her arms crossed, her head down. It was a position he'd found her in many times before. He loved it, loved the knowledge that he could slide in beside her and share the wall with her.

"Are they talking about me?" Jessica asked as Matt approached.

"Would you care if they were?"

"Only if they were deciding not to pursue this Fisk\Kilgrave thing," she told him seriously.

"I don't know-" he began, but she cut him off.

"I need you to believe me on this one," she said, the sincerity in her voice permeating any objections Matt was ready to make. "It sound ridiculous, I know, but I'm sure that Fisk has Kilgrave's abilities. That's why he took Trish. To lure me out, to make sure I would let them take my blood, so they could-"

"They took your blood!" Matt exclaimed, grasping her hand instinctively.

Jessica let her arms falls at her sides, her hand still clinched in his own, and turned to face him. "It didn't hurt," she told him, smiling.

"I wouldn't think so," he replied. "But I'm more concerned with the why."

"To make an antidote," she told him, as if that was the most logical thing someone could say.

Matt chuckled despite himself, his mind finally succumbing to how insane everything was beginning to sound. "That can't be why."

"Because it seems crazy? So does a woman who can bench lift a plane or a blind lawyer who jumps from building to building fighting crime. And don't get me started on The Hand. Everything about his _is_ crazy, but so are our lives, Murdock. This is just one more thing."

"An antidote to whatever mind control abilities Fisk now has," Matt said aloud, as if hearing it in his own voice would make it real.

"I'm the only one who could withstand Kilgrave's control. And from what little I've seen, I think Fisk's abilities are limited where I'm concerned too."

"So he takes your blood to create an antidote?" Matt asked, knowing the puzzles pieces were not fitting quite right.

"Not an antidote," Luke said, as he and Danny approached.

Jessica released Matt's hand quickly, returning herself to a crossed arm pose.

"If this is what you say it is," Luke began, "Then Fisk wouldn't want to create something to dilute or even stop his power. So he's not making an antidote."

"He's right," Matt said. "It's got to be something else."

"Well, if there was only one person in the world who could resist my control, it stands to reason that discovering how that's possible could lead to greater power. Maybe if Fisk can figure out what makes you immune to his mind control, he can make sure no one else is. It's not an antidote to him, but an antidote to whatever it is that makes you resistant."

Matt, Jessica, and Luke slowly turned to look at Danny.

"Yeah, I have my moments," he said.

XXXXXXXX

The once light infused dojo found itself surrounded by darkness after the sun had set. Jessica drank it in, happy to be able to close her eyes for the first time in almost two days. She was laying on the floor, a comforter that smelled of tea tree oil and potpourri crumpled beneath her, her own leather jacket draped over her torso for warmth.

Danny and Colleen slept in the other room, a makeshift apartment clad only in paintings of K'un-Lun and a pullout couch. Each time Danny moved in his sleep, the worn springs creaked, keeping Jessica firmly awake. She wondered how Colleen managed, how she was able to relax beside someone who was obviously having nightmares. Perhaps she had grown accustomed to how conflicted Danny was. Or perhaps she was conflicted too. Maybe that was the secret, finding someone just as scared and just as stubborn to sleep beside you.

Matt made his way quietly through the window. He had been on the roof, scanning the night for danger or clearing his head, Jessica wasn't sure. Creeping across the wood floor, he found his spot next to Jessica, sharing the remaining edge of comforter.

"Are you cold?" he asked, feeling her shiver beside him.

"No," she lied, hugging herself tighter under the leather jacket.

He exhaled loudly, louder than he had wanted to and in an instant he could feel Jessica's eyes on him. It was now or never. "I'm sorry," he told her.

"For what?" she asked. The question made him wonder if there were more things to be sorry for, if in her mind the list of his guilt was long and varied.

"For not coming with you when you went searching for Trish," he replied. "I should have and I'm sorry."

After what felt like an eternity, she simply replied, "Okay."

Wanting to be sure she was okay, be sure she had truly forgiven him, Matt stated, "Are you sure I can't ask Danny if he has more blankets?"

"I'm fine," she told him. "Besides, he's having a nightmare."

"How can you tell?" Matt asked.

Jessica didn't respond and Matt knew why. He could tell as well, he could hear it from the roof. Danny was turning in his sleep, lightly moaning, his fists clenched, his teeth grinding. Matt could hear his heart beating wildly, the thumps pulsating out of control. It felt so loud to him he wondered for a moment if Jessica could hear it too.

Eventually, Matt found his own sweet spot on the floor. He arms behind his head, his feet crossed over one another. Jessica knew he wasn't readying himself for sleep but rather another vigile. Together they listened to Danny as his nightmare painfully passed and his breathing finally grew rhythmic and calm.

"When I wake up, will you be here?" Jessica suddenly asked, catching Matt off guard.

"I'm usually not the one that runs away," he reminded her, his voice low, almost a whisper.

"Fair. Not completely accurate, but fair," she told him.

Even in the dark she could see him smile.


	19. Act Nineteen

"Matt, wake up."

The gentle voice pierced through the dream Matt was having, another dream about Jessica. This time they were lying together on a rooftop, her head resting on his shoulder, her leg curled over his own, an arm draped across his midsection. She was nuzzling into him, inhaling the sweet sweat that coated his skin.

The night was hot and sticky. She was wearing only a tank top and tight jeans. All her previous bruises and scars had faded, her healing powers forcing the porcelain skin into perfection. But for some reason, he didn't reach out for it, didn't allow his hand to run down the smoothness of her exposed arm.

Instead he kept his hands locked behind his head, his eyes staring unseeing into the dark sky. As Jessica leaned up on her elbow, moving her face towards his, as if to kiss him, Matt found himself softening to her advances, his mouth wanting what she had to give. Then suddenly she was pulled away from him, ripped from beside his form and across the roof. She opened her mouth to scream, but silence filled the space as her body lunged over the ledge and out of sight.

"Matt, wake up," Colleen said again, and this time Matt's eyes opened with fright.

"Colleen?" he questioned, reaching his hand out to the side, to the place on the comforter where Jessica had once been.

"Jessica left," Colleen told him.

Matt sat up straight, surprised. Just the night before she has asked him to be there when she awoke. He had thought that meant they were going into the next phase of their plan together. Since the plan hadn't been formulated, he was unsure where she'd go alone.

Matt stood, stretching, before heading back for the window.

"Matt, you can use the door," Colleen called after him, but he was already outside, moving down the edge of the building to the alleyway below.

As his feet hit the pavement, Matt realized he was still wearing Foggy's clothes. He had nothing else to change into, save his Devil suit. But it was barely noon and nothing could have been more obvious, more attention grabbing, than a man in red rubber walking through the streets of Hell's Kitchen.

"Here," Jessica Jones said as she walked up behind him. Matt cursed himself for yet again letting his guard down. There was a time a person couldn't sneak up on him, it was impossible. His senses were too heightened, he was always on. But being with Jessica, even in the direst of circumstances, allowed him to soften his vigil just a bit. Something about being with her made him feel normal - despite that fact that she was anything but.

"I thought you left," he said, reaching out for the disposable coffee cup she held in her hand.

"No. Just went on a coffee and liquor run," she told him honestly. Matt inhaled deep, smelling the whiskey that swirled within her own coffee cup and wafted from her lips. "I grabbed these, too."

Again, Matt reached out, but she was standing too close, readying herself to place a new pair of sunglasses on his face. Matt welcomed the intrusion.

"They're not the same, but they'll do," Jessica said, shifting the glassed on his nose, making them just right. "Are you going to come with me?" she asked as she backed away.

"Where are we going?"

"To figure out what the great city of New York did with Kilgrave's body."

Matt nodded in return. _Of course we are._

XXXXXXXXXX

By 5PM they had been to all the regular spots a P.I. like Jessica knew to hit. The morgue, the records room at City Hall, a friendly chat with a police officer Jessica had once helped on a case, and a not so friendly talk with a journalist Jessica hated. It was always the ones she hated who wrote the best shit - besides, her regular contact worked for the Bulletin. She knew that was a building neither of them should step foot in.

Even still, Jessica was unable to locate Kilgrave's body. The usual procedure, so she learned, was to bury the unclaimed in a potter's field just off the highway. But he wasn't there. And he wasn't in any cremation record she could get her hands on. Her police source claimed ignorance and her journalist source claimed a conspiracy, but either way there was nothing to lead them to Kilgrave.

After fruitless hours spent traversing the city by taxi, rather than rooftop, Matt had had enough and Jessica could tell. He was slumped in the back booth of a 24 hour diner, his head hung low. It was dinnertime, yet the establishment was nearly empty save for an elderly couple near the door sipping on coffee and taking tentative bites of oatmeal.

Jessica slide into the booth beside him, using her own body as a shield against prying eyes, hoping it would put him at ease.

"I checked my messages," Jessica told him. "Three hang ups right after the other."

"So Trish is okay," Matt replied, happy to hear the relief in her voice.

"Yeah. Your friend must have kept his word and got her out of town."

"Foggy tends to do that."

Jessica let herself rest next to him, her shoulder rubbing against his own. Matt couldn't help but think of his dream, think of how distant he had been with her. What was holding him back on that fictional rooftop? He had dreamt of her before, held her in his arms both in dreams and in his shower. He had _seen_ her in a way he was certain few really had, but this dream was tearing at him, gnawing at the corners of his mind.

Perhaps it was the guilt he hadn't yet resolved for not helping Jessica search for Trish. Despite Jessica's tepid assurance that she was no longer upset with him, he wondered if those lingering doubts had found their way into his sleep.

Or could it be his conflicted feelings about they quest they currently found themselves on? Even if they figured out what Wilson Fisk was really up to, could he stop him? Could he keep Jessica safe? He hadn't keep Electra safe and now she lay beneath a block of New York City? Could he lose someone else?

"I think our best bet is to shake down someone from the prison," Jessica said. Matt wondered if she had been talking the whole time.

"What?"

"Fisk got out somehow," Jessica reminded him.

"Foggy and I already went that root. No one at the D.A.'s office is talking."

Jessica chuckled. "Lawyers are worse than killers. They won't tell you a thing. I said someone at the prison. A guard or a janitor. Someone who know the inside track on how Fisk got out, or at the very least, why no one is talking about it."

"Okay," Matt said, his heart not in the mission, his head still in the meaning of his dream.

"Listen, I think I should go this one alone," she told him, taking a five dollar bill from her pocket and placing it on the table. Payment for the coffee Matt seemed too dejected to drink.

"No, we stick together," he replied.

Jessica stood up, then placed her foot on the booth to prevent his exit. "As much as I'd love to continue dragging you around the city, you're tired and frankly, you smell. Get some food or some sleep or a fucking shower, Murdock. We can meet back at the dojo later."

She removed her foot and began to walk away, but Matt quickly caught up with her and blocked her own exit from the dinner. The elderly couple silently watched.

"You asked me to come," Matt began.

"That was before I knew this was a fool's errand," she told him, moving to the right, trying to pass.

Matt slide to the side, his body creating a barrier between her and the door.

"You know if I wanted to I could toss you through that window, right?" she said, then smiled at the couple as if to relay she was only joking, but Jessica knew they weren't buying it.

"Please, let me come with you," Matt said.

"I'll be fine," Jessica replied, before pitching to the left then turning to the right yet again and slipping past Matt. As she reached for the door Matt caught up and grabbed her hand, but Jessica refused to relent and pulled away. "This isn't like your dream, Murdock. I'm more than capable of taking care of myself."

With that Jessica pushed ahead, exiting the diner, with Matt on her heels. He grabbed her elbow just outside. "How do you know about my dream?"

Jessica smiled. "You talk in your sleep."

"No, I don't," Matt said emphatically.

"Okay, you don't," she told him, not really caring if he believed her or not. "But someone was calling out my name in the middle of the night and I have a hard time believing Iron Boy was having erotic dreams about me."

"It wasn't erotic," Matt told her, foolishly playing his hand.

"Ah, I see," she said, "So it was one of those _please don't die on me, Jessica_ dreams, huh?"

Matt shook his head, trying to figure out how to salvage his dignity in the face of defeat, but Jessica saved him the trouble. "Don't worry. I've had those dreams too."

With that she left him standing in the mid-afternoon sun in front of the diner, a spectacle for the elderly couple to gawk at as they slurped down the last of their oatmeal.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Look, we can do this the hard way or the fucking awful way. Your choice," Jessica Jones told the man she found firmly in her grasp. He was on both knees, his head nearing the cement sidewalk, his right arm pulled back further and further each time Jessica felt the urge to give him more encouragement to talk.

His name was Derek Smith, an alias for Derek Tucker, a convicted rapist who jumped bail in Arkansas and found his way to the big city just in time for his cousin to get him a janitorial job on Riker's Island. This was Jessica's in, her way to the information she so desperately sought. And if she had to break a rapist's arm to get at the truth, she wasn't about to feel bad about it.

Derek yelped under the weight of her strength as he muscles tore. "Please, I'm telling you. I don't know nothin'."

"See, that just doesn't sit well with me, Derek. Because I have friends who are bail bondsman, actually more like bounty hunters, and they told me you were high on their to-do list. Tell me what I want to know and maybe you won't find yourself on the other side of a jail cell tonight."

Malcolm Ducasse stood only five feet away, his eyes scanning the street for witnesses. But Derek Smith, aka Tucker, was known to be a letch. His new identity couldn't stop him from leering suggestively at the neighbourhood girls and so his cries for help went happily unanswered.

"Tell me," Jessica said once again, pulling on his arm so hard his shoulder popped out of place. Derek screamed and Jessica released him to the ground.

"Come on," Malcolm said, but not to Jessica. He knew there was no stopping her. He was talking to Derek. "Just tell her what she wants to know, man."

It had been Malcolm who had tracked Derek down. Jessica had called him the night before, the night she couldn't sleep on the dojo floor, the night Matt's dreams kept her too alert to focus on anything but stopping Fisk once and for all.

While Jessica had spent the day looking for Kilgrave's body, Malcolm had been looking for prison snitches. Her earlier revelation to Matt that they look for someone from the prison to talk to was a rouse. She had already been running that play, but was afraid Matt would stop her for fear she was getting too close.

Within 8 hours of her call, Malcolm had tracked down the cousin, a former guard at the prison. Unfortunately, he had quit just a month before Fisk's escape and knew nothing of it. Fortunately, Malcolm had discovered he once smuggled drugs into the prison, a little gift to those serving 5 to 10. With leverage like that, the cousin gave up Derek Tucker in an instant.

"Look, lady, I don't know what you're on about," Derek cried out as his shoulder throbbed in pain. "I wasn't even workin' when that fat bastard busted out."

"Well, if you don't know anything then I guess I can give my bounty hunter friends a call. I'm sure they'll patch up your arm before sending you back to Riker's - this time as an inmate."

"Fuck," Derek whispered. "Alright, alright. I might know something."

Jessica picked him back up, pulling on his dislocated shoulder, and the pain shot through him and out his mouth. "Yes, fuck. I know something!"

"Which is?" Jessica asked, a smirk on her face that only Malcolm could see.

"That guy, that Fisk guy, he had a visitor the day before he walked, man. Some old lady. I saw her in the common room and I remember because she had her bag. They don't let people have bags in there, you know? Not safe or whatever. But she had one."

"What was in it?" Jessica demanded, forcing his face closer to the sidewalk, forcing his arm to strain beyond breaking.

"I don't know. I swear. But when I went to clean the room that night I found some glasses in the trash."

"Glasses? Like sunglasses?" Jessica asked.

"No. No," Derek yelped, trying to push against her but finding it useless. "Like tiny glass cups. You know, for science or somethin'."

Jessica shook her head. _This fucking idiot._

"Like vials?" Malcolm asked. Both Jessica and Derek looked up, staring at him, but Derek said nothing.

 _He doesn't know what vials are,_ Jessica thought. _Jesus._

"Uh, the glass tubes that doctors put your blood in," Malcolm offered, trying to help Derek give Jessica the information she needed.

"Yeah, yeah. Those. They were in the trash."

"Had you ever see the old woman before that?" Jessica asked.

"No. Never."

"Okay," Jessica said, believing him. She finally released his arm and he fell flat on the cement, his chin smacking he sidewalk, creating a split in his skin.

"Fuck!" he cried out. Jessica ignored him, pulling her cell phone from her back pocket.

"Yeah. He's here. Two blocks East of West 43rd and 10th."

Derek, realizing what Jessica had done, began crawling away, but she stopped him with a boot to the back. "You bitch," he cried. "You said if I told you-"

"Well, I lied," Jessica said, before kicking him in the face. His unconscious body hit the pavement yet again, this time with a thud.

"Really?" Malcolm asked as he followed Jessica down the block.

"I'm not shedding a tear," she said.

"So, what's up with the vials. Were they taking Fisk's blood?" Malcolm wondered, stepping wide in order to keep up with her.

"If they were taking his blood they would have taken the vials with them. That old witch was giving him something."

"What?" Malcolm asked. Jessica stopped walking and Malcolm nearly bumped into her.

"I think Wilson Fisk used whatever was in those vials to help him break out of prison."

"How?"

"I don't know. Like a potion or something."

"A potion?" Malcolm choked out.

Jessica sighed and kept walking, but just as quickly stopped again.

"No, not a potion. Kilgrave," she said, more to herself than to Malcolm. The look on his face told her he had no idea what she talking about, but Jessica didn't care. She was sure she was working it out in her mind, she was sure she was onto something. "Kilgrave's power came from his voice. At first people had to be in the room with him, breathe in his presence for the mind control to work."

"And then he got more powerful," Malcolm interjected, remembering the rest of the story.

"So maybe whatever was in those vials was from Kilgrave's body, the body I can't find. Maybe The Hand or Fisk took Kilgrave to use after he was dead."

"And so, what? If Fisk injected or drank Kilgrave's blood he'd have his powers?" Malcolm questioned.

"Or inhaled his pheromones," Jessica added.

"But wouldn't that just put him under Kilgrave's spell? I mean, why would that give Fisk powers?"

"It wouldn't. But the fucking Hand brought a woman back from the dead. I think they could figure out what made Kilgrave tick; after it all, he wasn't born like that. His parents did all those awful experiments on him, the biopsies and spinal taps. Let's just say The Hand or that old woman or anyone working for Fisk probably has access to better equipment than a couple of British scientists in a basement lab."

Jessica turned again to leave. Derek Smith, aka Tucker, was still knocked out less than a block away, barely visible as the sun set over Hell's Kitchen.

Malcolm did not follow. Instead, he stood still, deep in thought. When Jessica finally noticed, she contemplated whether or not to go back the 25 yards or so for him, wondering if he would just catch up. But Malcolm looked somewhat lost and Jessica sighed in frustration.

"Hey!" she called out. "What gives?"

"Nothing," Malcolm told her, shaking his head as if shaking an errant thought loose.

"Spill," Jessica told him. "Or I'll leave your ass behind."

Malcolm chuckled. He knew how to get home without her. He knew a lot about the city, maybe more than Jessica cared to admit. Former drug users were good P.I. assistants, despite her continued protestations. And, for him, the work was good, fulfilling, distracting. But sometimes he wanted more. Maybe friendship. He wasn't sure. But there were times he wanted to speak his mind to Jessica Jones without getting threatened. This was one of those times.

He sighed. "It just- it almost sounded like you were feeling sorry for him just then."

"Sorry for Kilgrave? No. Never," she relayed, surprised by the statement.

"I guess, it'd be okay if you were," Malcolm said, not really sure if he meant it. Kilgrave had taken his sobriety from him, he had pushed his limits further than he thought possible, he had made him scared of his own reflection. Yet, Jessica and Malcolm never spoke of it - their mutual suffering, the scars that refused to heal. If she was feeling sorry for him, feeling anything for him, it turned his stomach, but Malcolm also knew that people were more complex than that. He knew feelings were never black and white. "If you want to talk about-"

"There's nothing to talk about," Jessica told Malcolm. "Kilgrave was a monster… and that's why I broke his fucking neck."


	20. Act Twenty

"I can show you how," Matt Murdock offered, his fists already clenched.

Jessica Jones shook her head no. She wasn't interested in boxing lessons or karate or anything else. She thought she had made that perfectly clear.

Yet despite her ardent dislike, Danny and Matt thought it best to learn how to control her strength after the events of Friday night. But now on Sunday afternoon, with the sun streaming into the dojo once again, Jessica felt exposed, judged. She wasn't ready to give an inch of her stubbornness away.

"Come on," Matt cajoled. "Danny and Colleen won't be back for hours. This is the perfect time. I promise not to judge."

 _There it is again,_ Jessica thought. How was he always able to do that? Able to read her mind? She must have let something slip, a skipped heartbeat or a too heavy exhale. It had to be that because if it was anything else it meant that Matt knew her, really knew her, and that kind of vulnerability was something foreign to her. It was something she refused to get used to.

"I'm really not in the mood to hit you in the face," Jessica told Matt.

"Liar," he returned playfully. "What happened to being ready for the next time we meet up with Fisk?"

"I never said that. That was all you and Danny and Luke."

"Well, it was a good tip," Matt said. "We're all a little rusty."

"Speak for yourself, Murdock. Only one of us had a mysterious vacation after our supposed death. Where did you say you were again?"

Matt knew what she was doing, prying into his life in order to move the heat off of her own. But he knew training her, allowing her to really understand her strength and how to use it, could make her more confident.

"I'm telling you, this will help," Matt said. "After the other night-"

"That was a mistake!" Jessica blurted out.

"I know," he told her calmly. He hoped that she truly believed he was on her side, but lately Jessica felt as if no one was on Team Jones.

XXXXXXXXXX

 **Last Friday**

Jessica awoke in her own bed for the first time in almost a week to the sound of her cell phone dinging from the floor just beneath her jeans. She stumbled from the mattress and reaches out to grab it, turning it over to read a message from her bounty hunter friend. A quick thanks for the heads up on Derek Smith, AKA Tucker. One less scumbag on the streets. That was something to be happy about, but Jessica just couldn't muster the energy.

She flopped on her back, clad only in her panties and a white tank top. They were dirty. She was dirty. The last few days had just been too long. With a frustrated grunt, Jessica pulled herself up and contemplated making her way to the shower, but just as quickly fell back down. Sleep was much more appealing.

She had spent the remainder of the night before drinking heavily. Full bottles of whiskey found their way into her stomach, some on her shirt and some in her hair as she stomped about her apartment cursing Malcolm for wondering about her hatred toward Kilgrave. That hatred bled into her still simmering anger at Danny and Luke, especially Luke, who was still questioning her certainty that Fisk was Kilgrave 2.0.

Jessica wasn't stupid. She knew Luke's peace offering in the alley the morning before, his suggestion that Fisk wasn't making an antidote, but rather something to make him stronger wasn't apology enough for doubting her in the first place.

All that anger led to the consumption of more and more alcohol, so much so that she forgot to call Matt and tell him she was onto something. The old woman made a visit to Fisk in prison. He was given something. The next day he seemingly walked out. But Jessica had drunk herself stupid before any more thought could be given to Fisk's greater plan.

Now she rubbed her head. She must have drank too much, if that was even possible, because hangovers were usually not her forte. Yet, there she was feeling the brunt of one full against her skull.

Groaning heavily she finally crawled out of bed and practically tumbled into the shower. As she started to lather up she realized she was still wearing her tank top and underwear. Letting out a hazy laugh, she peeled the wet clothes off and dropped them outside the tub with a splat. At that same moment she thought she heard something inside her living room/office/everything else. _Probably Malcolm._

But when Jessica eventually turned off the lukewarm water and heard no pithy comments about the countless empties she knew were strewn about the apartment, she realized Malcolm couldn't be out there. Her imagination was getting the best of her.

"Where have you been?" Matt Murdock asked as she stepped out of her bathroom clad only in a towel.

Jessica couldn't help but gasp, not loud, but she knew he heard it, felt it. "Fuck, Murdock. What are you doing here?" Her imagination had failed her again.

He was dressed differently, better. She assumed he went shopping. The clothes could not have been Danny's because there was no linen or open-toed shoes. But then she spied his trademark red sunglasses and she knew what that meant.

"You went back to your place," she said, shaking her head. "So breaking and entering is a theme for the day, I see."

"It's not breaking and entering when it's your own apartment," he told her, shifting in the only chair he could find that wasn't in tatters on her floor.

Malcolm had cleaned up, somewhat, after the events of the other night. They had all assumed Fisk's men broke in, but what they were looking for she still wasn't sure. Trish's address? Any fool could have followed her home from the radio station? Information about Kilgrave? If they had his body, as she now suspected, that wouldn't make any sense. Information about her? Maybe that's why they took her laptop. But nothing gives more information than her blood, and if that was their plan all along trashing her apartment hardly fit. Malcolm had suggested it was just a random robbery and Jessica couldn't help but wonder if he was right. But she didn't dwell on it, or his cleanup efforts. She liked the place a mess. It seemed to fit everything else in her life

"Well, it was idiotic," Jessica told Matt as she strode into her room. She let the towel drop, unsure if he could see her or not. "You know Fisk is looking for you. You know he's aware Matt Murdock and the Devil of Hell's Kitchen are one in the same."

"So?" Matt replied. "He could have taken me the other night at the warehouse. He knew I'd come for you; you said so yourself. But he fled before I arrived. I figured it was safe to take a chance and grab a few things from home before this really starts to kick up again."

"And you thought suits and skinny ties were the way to go?" she asked sarcastically.

She stepped out of the bedroom clad in a different pair of ripped blue jeans and yet another button up shirt, this time jet black like her hair, which was wet and heavy against her back. She pulled at it, piling it high on top of her head. As she did she watched Matt's neck crane to the left, as if he could hear the movement of her hair, or smell her exposed collarbone. She wasn't sure, but the slight smile that crept across his face almost made her blush. Almost.

"So," Matt finally said.

"So what?" Jessica replied, finding her own spot on the desk, letting her legs dangle off the edge.

"So where have you been?"

"Um… here."

"I came by last night," he told her.

"And I wasn't curled under that blanket in a drunken stupor?" Jessica snapped. "Well, then I must have been on a liquor run or liquor binge."

"Or shaking down a source," Matt offered.

"No, that happened earlier in the evening."

"Come on, Jess. I thought you wanted us to go at this like a team."

Jessica sighed, before grabbing her own legs and tucking them beneath her, sitting like Danny had the other day in Colleen's dojo. "Malcolm and I found a guy who saw the old woman at the prison."

"The old woman?"

"The woman from The Hand, the one that got away," Jessica said, frustration creeping into her voice. _Did no one listen?_

"And what was she doing?"

"Visiting Fisk," Jessica told Matt. She watched his neck crane again. Now he was interested. "Giving him something."

"Giving him what?"

"I don't know, but whatever it was I think it made him more Kilgrave than Fisk. I think it's what allowed him to walk out of prison."

Matt leaned back in the chair, thinking. Jessica let him have the moment. Hell, she had taken all night. "Okay," he finally said. "So what's the play?"

"You mean, you don't want to rush in fists flying and just see what happens?" she cracked at his expense.

"Yeah, I do," he told her sheepishly. "But we don't know where to rush into. I had Luke check out the warehouse last night. He says it's completely empty."

Jessica pressed herself off the desk violently at the mere utterance of Luke's name. She stomped back to the bedroom to search for her missing boots.

"What?" Matt asked.

"Nothing. I just need some coffee."

"Coffee or whiskey?"

"You know, I don't judge your vices," she yelled from the other room.

"Ha!" Matt let out. "You're all about judging."

"No," she told him, peeking out of the bedroom with only one boot in hand. "I observe. It's my job. And if my observations happen to be spot on, as they usually are, that's not on me but on you fuckers for having so many problems I can easily identify."

She ducked back into the room, frustrated, but also feeling better overall. Her hangover was drifting away and she had new purpose.

"Besides," she continued, "As far as vices go, booze is better than woman."

She emerged once again, this time wearing both boots and her signature scarf and leather jacket combo.

"Are you implying I'm addicted to women?" Matt asked.

"The worst kind of women," Jessica teased. She grabbed her keys from their spot on the floor just inside the front door and her scarf from it's perch over the doorknob.

Matt stood, readying himself to leave with her. "I'll have you know my taste in women is fine. It's good. It's totally normal."

"That almost sounded convincing," Jessica cracked as she pushed him out the door and into the dingy hallway.

"Fine. After coffee are you going to tell me what's going on with you and Luke? Or do you want me to pretend I didn't notice how pissed you got when I said his name?"

"Keep your gifts to yourself, Murdock."

"I wasn't using my gifts." He hated that word.

As the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside together, Jessica said, "Don't call your powers gifts. It makes you sound pretentious."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

After consuming three cups of coffee, each without the aid of any extra alcoholic flavouring, Jessica was relieving herself in the bathroom of Colleen's dojo. Washing her hands Jessica peered into the mirror and caught a glimpse of her own tired and dull face. Splashing water on her cheeks and forehead and letting it dry, she did it again. She was stalling. She didn't want to go back out there and have another huddle up with the team.

Just the day before she was finally coming to terms with being a member of this group. Now, she wanted nothing more than to go it alone. Alone she was able to find Trish, find a source that led her closer to how Fisk was able to use Kilgrave's mind control abilities, and alone she suspected she could find him and stop him.

"Are you okay in there?" Colleen asked from the other side of the door.

Jessica knew she was just being polite, but it irritated her anyway. "Yeah," she called back, trying not to sound annoyed. "I'll be out in a minute."

Finally, after much longer than a minute, Jessica opened the door to find Colleen still standing there.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," Jessica returned.

She could tell Colleen was trying to find her words. Jessica didn't have time for shit like that. "Just say it. Say whatever you need to say."

"I think you should lay off the guys," she told her.

"Fuck," Jessica croaked. Another person against her.

"No, no, Jessica," Colleen continued. "I'm with you on this one. I think there's enough magic and mystery in the world to make almost anything possible. You know this Kilgrave better than anyone and if you say he's now Fisk or Fisk is using his power... I don't get it, but I believe you."

Jessica softened, not quite understanding. "Then why do you want me to lay off the guys."

"Because they don't believe you yet. And in my experience you catch more flies with honey than-"

Jessica cut her off. "I'm sorry, but wasn't your experience killing people?"

Colleen lowered her head, as if ashamed.

"Hey, I'm not judging," Jessica told her. "Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. But I'm also not going to pussyfoot around what I know to be true just because your boyfriend and Luke can't handle it."

"Okay," Colleen replied. Jessica began to walk away, back toward the training room. "But, just so you know, killing isn't something I'm proud of."

Jessica shrugged. "I don't know. I guess it depends on who you kill."

XXXXXXXXXX

Colleen's words still in her head - _lay off the guys_ \- Jessica listened to everyone else's plans and theories before offering her own. Danny suspected Fisk was staging an assault on New York, perhaps similar to the former Hand. Maybe he was the new Hand. But Matt reminded him The Hand wanted immortality and to return to K'un-Lun. That didn't seem to be Fisk's M.O.

Matt wondered if Fisk wasn't simply planning to leave, to find Vanessa and move far, far away. But after saying it aloud, Matt knew it couldn't be true. He had angered Fisk, threatened his love, and now that his secret as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen was exposed and vulnerable, he knew Fisk would be coming for him.

"Plus, you're dead," Danny reminded him. "So if Fisk _kills you_ again no one will ask any questions."

"Thanks for reminding me," Matt said, sarcasm dripping from his lips.

Luke suggested, once again, that this was all a rouse. That there was no way Fisk could be Kilgrave; that Kilgrave was dead. When Matt reminded him that they had kidnapped Trish to force Jessica into giving blood - what reason would they have for that if it was all an act? - Luke had no explanation.

Jessica had kept her mouth shut long enough. "What is the issue here, Luke?"

"What?" he asked.

"Look, I just need you to be on my side about this."

"Yeah, Jess, you already said that. But I need to be honest and true with what I believe. You can't expect me to just jump 'cause you say so."

"But when Danny and Matt say so, it's fine," Jessica returned.

"What does that mean?"

"You went all recon on the warehouse for Matt. And now you say you don't believe Fisk is up to something. Then why help?"

"I never said I don't believe he's up to something. He definitely up to something. So, yeah, I did some recon for Matt - for all of us. But that doesn't mean I think he has the power to control my mind."

"You've experienced it firsthand, Luke," Jessica reminded him. "Of everyone here I thought you would be the most receptive to the danger out there."

"I have experienced it," Luke grumbled in return. "And so I know that sitting around talking about maybes or what ifs isn't going to help. Let's just get Fisk off the streets. He's a criminal and he escaped prison. That's enough for me."

Jessica started to laugh. It wasn't deep or loud, but it lasted longer than she would have liked. But she just couldn't help herself.

"What's so funny?" Luke asked her, annoyance creeping into his voice.

"I couldn't understand why you just wouldn't believe me, but now I get it."

"Oh, yeah, Jess. What do you get?" he barked back at her.

"In your mind, it can't be Kilgrave. It just can't. Because then the man who caused Reva's death, the man who altered your mind, who forced me to shoot you in the head isn't gone. And if he isn't really gone all those feelings you're burying deep down inside will bubble to the surface."

"So we're making this personal now."

"Yes! What the fuck, Luke? Of course it's personal. It's always been personal!" Jessica shouted.

Luke turned his back on the group and began stomping to the wall. He was grunting. He was seething. He was reeling for a fight and in one swift motion he let his fist fly against the brick and it smashed around his impenetrable skin.

Danny and Matt both stepped back in shock, but Jessica loved it - it meant that she was right.

"Is that what you want, Jess?" he asked her.

"No, asshole. I wanted you to talk," she quipped. "But we can smash things if that makes it better for you."

"Stop it, Jess," he told her, trying to make his way to the door, fully intending to leave the structural damage in Colleen's dojo behind him.

"No, no, no. Admit to me that you know I'm right. That you know Fisk is using Kilgrave's powers!"

"I don't know that!" Luke yelled. "I don't _want_ to know that."

"Because then it's real."

Luke sighed. "Yes, Jessica. Of course. Then it's real."

Jessica smiled, smugly satisfied with herself, but Luke wasn't finished.

"And if it's real it brings back all the hatred I have for you. All the disgust I feel for sleeping with the women who killed Reva, for letting her in my head and my heart. If this is real then you and I are done… again. And I was hoping against hope that wouldn't be the case."

Jessica stood silent.

"Okay. Hey, hey," Matt said, trying to interject some reason into their brewing fight, but Luke wouldn't hear of it.

"And this guy," Luke continued, pointing to Matt. "I don't know what you're doing to him, but you better think long and hard, Jess, before you drag him further into this. Do you want what happened to me to happen to him? Do you want him to become a pawn in this game? Or is that what you're into now? Sleeping with men and using men and leaving men-"

"Alright, that's enough," Matt shouted, placing his body between Jessica and Luke.

Jessica shouldn't have been surprised, but she was. Not that Luke thought these awful things about her - hell, they were things she thought about herself. She was surprised he was saying them out loud because saying them out loud made them just as real as the Kilgrave threat. Saying them out loud also meant Matt could hear. She'd have given anything for him not to hear.

"I think we all just need to calm down," Danny offered, as he placed a hand on Luke's shoulder.

"Right," Matt said, nodding. "We just need to take a step back."

Luke shook his head no. "I'm done stepping back."

"Me too," Jessica replied.

"Good."

Danny released his gentle grip on Luke as the tension in the room refused to settle. But Matt would not move, could not. He felt protective of this team, but of Jessica more than anyone. Yes, she could handle herself, _but she shouldn't always have to,_ he thought.

"Matt, get out of the way," Jessica said, as if she could hear Matt's thoughts and all the reasons why he had yet to move.

"Jessica," Matt whispered.

"Move!" she cried, but before Matt could follow her instructions or argue with her plan of action, she had already shoved him to the right. Matt knew she could have shoved harder, but he wasn't the one she was mad at.

"I don't want to fight, Jess," Luke told her, but she could see his fists clenching. It was probably defensive, she knew. Luke was too good to haul back and punch her.

Jessica wasn't good at all.

She reeled back and let her right fist fly straight into his shoulder. Luke felt the blow, and while it didn't break this skin, it couldn't, it certainly caught him off guard and forced him back against the wall. Another hole was made, this time bigger, with bricks crashing to the floor at his feet.

"What the hell?" Luke said to himself, but before he could process any further, Jessica was barrelling toward him.

Luke moved his arms, protecting his face, and Jessica crashed full force into them, a body slam that sent them both back and then tumbling to the ground. Matt moved to stop them, but by this time Colleen had entered the room and both she and Danny held him back. No one wanted to see the dojo destroyed, but this didn't seem like the type of fight they could successfully break up.

Luke stood and grabbed Jessica by the jacket, hauling her to her feet. As she swung wildly to punch him yet again, Luke used his free hand to grab an errant fist, crushing it in his palm. Jessica winced, but not for long. Soon her foot found his shin and he dropped her hard on the floor yet again.

Luke stumbled back, never once thinking about kicking her while she was down. They stayed relatively calm for a moment, each wondering what their new line of attack should be, until Jessica pulled herself up. She waited for him to hit her, yell at her, anything. But he hadn't started this, not really. And Jessica could tell he was ready for it all to be over.

The thought of it being over, of losing Luke, killed her and she reacted the only way she knew how. She pushed him repeatedly in the chest trying to provoke him. The longer they fought the longer he would stay.

But Luke only replied, "This isn't what I wanted."

"Really? I thought I disgusted you. The murderer of your wife, your seductress, your downfall. Isn't that what you said?" she yelled, still pushing, poking. "You've always wanted this."

"And we've done it all before," Luke reminded her. "I wanted to move past this. That's why I couldn't let Kilgrave be real again."

Luke shook his head at the scene around him. He reached out and grabbed her arms pulling her close to him, his fight gone. "You just couldn't let it be, could you?"

Jessica didn't know what to say.

Luke let her go and silently walked past a stunned Danny, Matt and Colleen.

"If Kilgrave is back, if Fisk is using his power, then I hope you stop him, Jess," Luke told her, his hand on the doorknob, his back to the group. "I would tell you to be careful, but…"

He didn't finish. Instead, Luke Cage walked out, leaving the team and Jessica behind.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 **Present Day**

Jessica stood in the corner of the dojo's training room, as Matt rattled on about the importance of anticipating the opponent's next move. But she wasn't listening to him. She was replaying the events of Friday night in her head, over and over, like a summer song the radio refuses to quit.

Drinking so much she was basically hungover, condoning murder to Colleen - a woman who probably wanted to reminded of anything but - yelling at Luke, fighting with Luke, losing Luke.

 _Ugh,_ she thought. _Enough._

But it wouldn't stop. Ever since Matt came back from the dead her judgement was impaired. Everything was off and she was too slowly realizing that she couldn't set it right again.

Matt shadow boxed in front of her. "You have to control your strength," he said. Jessica continued to ignore the words, and instead took in his form.

Unlike Luke, it wasn't Kilgrave that had her spooked. It was Matt.

How could someone so unassuming disrupt everything she knew to be true? Was she meant to be mad at him for introducing Fisk into her life? Or should she force herself to hold tighter to him now that Luke, and the team, was fracturing around her? With Trish gone was Matt all she had left.

 _Stop it!_ She was yelling at herself internally, while Matt continued to perform kicks and twists accompanied by fortune cookie sized mantras. She wondered if this is what it was to be trained by that weird guy, Stick. If so, she could see why Electra hated it.

 _Now you've done it,_ Jessica thought. _Electra. Really? Why are you thinking about her?_

Matt was too. He couldn't help it. The idea of training Jessica, a powerful, stunningly beautiful woman, reminded him of sparring with Electra. Sparring that led to kissing. Kissing that led to sex. Jessica didn't need that now. She was just crushed by Luke's words, crushed by her own over-the-top response to them. Matt had to stay level headed at all costs.

"I don't want to do this," Jessica told him finally. He was in mid-sentence, but she hadn't noticed.

"I really think it will help."

"I know. You said that. And I really think it will be awful and embarrassing," she replied.

"Learning basic fight tactics takes time, but there's nothing to be embarrassed about," Matt told her reassuringly.

She laughed, a full hearted all out laugh. "Not me! Embrarring for you. I'd kick your ass, Murdock."

Before he had time to refute her claim, she continued. "Besides, what happened the other night was terrible. I know that. But this won't make it better."

Matt was taken aback by her honesty, by her own realization that what she and Luke had done was terrible. But it was also human. Matt could hear their heartbeats throughout the fight. There was no bloodlust there. Just confusion and feelings of betrayal on both sides.

"I think I know what will fix this," Jessica said.

"I don't know, Jessica. Luke might not be ready to talk. It's only been a few days."

"Tequila."

Matt smiled. "No."

"Yes, Murdock."

"Wasn't drinking yourself stupid part of the problem?"

"That was whiskey. This will be different."

Matt shook his head, but Jessica was already heading for the door.

She turned back and smirked at him. "Follow me Devil. I dare you."


	21. Act Twenty-One

Matt Murdock slammed the shot glass down on the table far too forcefully, causing peanut shell remnants to scatter in its wake.

Jessica Jones laughed. "You're drunk, Murdock."

"I told you, I don't get drunk."

"Well, neither do I."

They were lying, of course. His was a lie of dignity, not wanting to seem like the kind of guy who got sloppy after three shots. Hers was a lie of sanity, not wanting to admit that even her iron stomach couldn't handle a few pours of tequila.

But they weren't drunk… at least not yet. They were just content and loud and laughing. And they both knew it was completely strange.

 _He has to be drunk_ , Jessica thought, because she refused to believe he could be this at ease in the midst of so much chaos. It was usually her place to be carefree. Most mistook it for recklessness, but Jessica knew Matt was smarter than that. He understood the need to take a break from the insanity.

"One more for the road?" Matt asked.

At least she thought he did.

Matt raised his hand in the air silently calling for another round of shots.

"You're done already?" Jessica scoffed.

"Well, we do have more important things to-"

"No, no, no," she forcefully cut him off. "We promised we wouldn't talk about any of that."

Matt smiled. "I made no such promises. Besides, not talking about it doesn't make it not true."

"Wow. Are those the same smarts you use to win court cases?" she joked, knowing he hadn't had a case since before they met... before he died.

"No," he told her. "I buy off the judges."

Jessica choked out a laugh. "So you really are a good Catholic, huh?"

"Last round or we risk the chance of finding out," Matt slyly told her as the next serving of shots and lime wedges arrived at their table.

If it had been any other man, Jessica would have known he was flirting with her. But Matt Murdock was a breed all his own. He'd seen her vulnerable, beaten, bruised- hell, he'd seen her nearly naked and barely made a move. _He couldn't be flirting,_ she assured herself. All she needed was another conquest, another Luke Cage to come barrelling into her life and her bed and then leave just as suddenly. She couldn't risk letting someone else take a piece of her away.

She took her shot and threw it back, letting the untouched lime wedge plunk to the tabletop like the others.

"No, I think we should take the night off," she told him. "The whole night. I'm sure you've made exceptions for all those pretty blondes you date. Make one for me, Murdock."

Acting far too boldly, Matt pounded his shot back in kind and immediately regretted not coating his tongue with salt first. He knew no one could out drink Jessica Jones. Why was he even trying?

"Ugh," he let out, his mouth on fire. Jessica passed him a lime wedge and he hungrily crunched it between his teeth. "Just one blonde," he mumbled, as citrus slowly poured down his chin.

"What?"

Matt stuffed the used wedge in his empty shot glass. "Just one blonde. Karen."

"Ah, Karen," Jessica repeated. "So you're telling me you've never foregone work for a late night rendezvous with her?"

"Is this a late night rendezvous?" he asked, and she was sure she saw his eyebrow crest above the rim of his red sunglasses in jest.

Jessica rose her hand in the air, just as Matt had, and the server sluggishly pulled herself to the table again. "We're going to need the rest of the bottle. And some more lime wedges."

"Jessica, I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Don't worry. I'll carry you home."

Matt loosened his tie. Jessica had been right, off all the clothes he could have foraged from his ransacked apartment he probably shouldn't have taken almost exclusively suits. Leaning back in his chair as Jessica leaned forward in her own, he realized they were growing ever more comfortable with each other. And why shouldn't they be? She had see him at his most vulnerable, heartbroken and filled with rage. And yet she had allowed him to serve as her protector, a role he desperately needed to play despite the fact that she was capable of caring for herself. Hell, she'd even let him see her nearly naked, allowed him to tend to her wounds, something he was sure even Luke Cage hadn't managed. He'd risk a few drunken missteps if it meant spending more time with her.

"So, if we can't talk about the matter at hand," Matt began, "And I certainly don't want to talk about any past…"

"Conquests?" Jessica playfully offered.

"Girlfriends," Matt replied more diplomatically. "What can we talk about?"

"Hmm. I'm not much for talking, at least not about anything that matters."

"Then how about we play truth or dare?" he asked just as the server returned with their bottle of tequila and a bowl of lime wedges. Through the fog of thickening intoxication he was sure he caught her shake her head before departing.

"Truth or dare," Jessica laughed as she poured two more shots, swallowing hers in an instant. "Am I seeing the Matt Murdock Playbook in action?"

"The what?"

"Come on, you're telling me this isn't how you impress the ladies on first dates? Have them dare you to do something no blind man could possibly do, then you do it, of course. And eventually fall into bed with them, enraptured, as they beg you to show them other things blind man can't do... or some bullshit like that."

"You have quite an imagination."

"So I've been told."

Matt wanted to know who had told her that, but he held his tongue. "Sadly, I've never played truth or dare before. At least not as an adult."

"There's a reason for that, Murdock. It's a kid's game."

She poured herself another shot and slammed it back, not waiting for Matt to match her quest to reach the bottom of the bottle.

"Ah, child's play, huh?" he teased. "Then I'm sure you'll do fine." He drank his shot, once again forgetting the salt, and once again stifling his gag reflexes.

He had once been so good at all this: drinking, talking, acting smooth. But now he was stumbling over himself, tripping at every upturn of the corners of her mouth.

"Fine," she told him. "I'll go first. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Where were you for the last three months?"

 _Damn,_ he thought. _She didn't mess around._

"Maybe we could start with something a little less in depth."

"Okay. How did you survive a building falling on your head?"

"Jesus, Jessica," Matt groaned.

"You wanted to play," she reminded him.

"Well, that question feels a little out of bounds."

"It was a fucking building, Murdock. Come on. Did you think no one was ever going to ask?"

Matt grabbed the bottle from her hand and took a huge swig of harsh, gold liquid. "No, of course not. But does knowing how change anything?"

Jessica thought for a moment. Did it? Would unravelling the mystery of his seemingly miraculous survival change their relationship? And if it did, would the change be for the better?

"I'm a P.I.," Jessica finally said.

"Well, then I guess you don't need my help to figure it out." He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table.

She knew he was staring at her, looking into her eyes from behind his glasses, seeing inside her, but she refused to turn away from his glare. They sat frozen like that, stuck in place as the movement of the bar swirled around them.

Jessica longed to take another chug of tequila, to quell the unease she felt with booze, but she sat firm. Perhaps she shouldn't have asked him about the events following Midland Circle's collapse, but could he blame her? She felt as if he knew everything about her, all her dirty secrets, and yet she was painfully in the dark on more than one topic when it came to him.

Matt could feel her boring into him, her stare latched to the red of his sunglasses, seeing through their reflective sheen into the brown of his eyes. He longed to lean back again, feel the ease he'd had in her presence just moments before, but he couldn't let her break him. She was so good at getting under his skin. He had seen her crawl inside those around her and exploit the things they kept closest to their heart. He didn't want her to have that kind of leverage over him. He knew the fear was foolish, a holdover from a time when women like Elektra, women who manipulated him, ruled his life. Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that some secrets should remain shrouded in darkness.

"You lose, Murdock," she finally said, and Matt knew it was her way of giving him respite from the staring match - a match she would have surely won. "Dare."

He swallowed hard.

"I dare you to steal another bottle of tequila."

Matt shrugged. "We already have one," he told her, before realizing she had it in her mouth, head tipped back, as the last splashes of alcohol coated her throat.

"What was that?" she asked, slamming the now empty bottle before him.

"You know, I could just pay for a bottle."

"So could I… I think," Jessica said. "But this way's much more fun."

"These people are running a business, Jessica. Not to mention the fact that this is the kind of thing I try to prevent others from doing."

Jessica laughed. "You put on red rubber fetish wear to stop petty theft? Geez, no wonder this neighbourhood still has a terrible crime problem."

"This wouldn't be helping it," he said, ignoring her snide joke.

"Alright, let's dial the indignation back. First, this place is a shithole and not just because it vaguely smells of actual shit, but because the owner uses it as a front for illegal gambling. Those doors back there don't lead to the men's room, you know. Second, the bottle you're going to steal has already been stolen. A liquor shipment was boosted a few days ago. It's not the first time this month a truck was stolen, not to mention a driver given the beating of his life. And third… don't be a pussy, Murdock."

Her lips curled again, a sly smile creeping across her face. He couldn't help himself. He was intrigued. "And if I do this, it's my turn?"

"Of course. I'm a good sport."

"Then where are we taking this little party?"

"Just get the bottle."

Jessica stood up, taking a crumpled twenty from her pocket and dropping it on the table. Matt knew whatever she had put down wasn't enough to cover the first bottle, but he let it go. He was in no position to argue.

As she walked to the exit, he followed a distance behind. Then in one quick motion he reached out his hand toward the table closest to him and swiftly knocked it sideways. Beer bottles and glasses shattered on the floor. As the two men sitting at the table stood, Matt pressed his foot out, tripping one of them and forcing a domino of people knocking into one another. While a few people realized Matt was the culprit, it was too late, he had already used the distraction as an opportunity to hop the bar. Before the bartender could react, he had tucked a bottle of Silver Patron under his arm and was jumping back.

"Hey!" the bartender yelled, but Matt ignored him. He was more concerned about the server who was swinging her tray directly at his face. Matt tried to duck, but he was already pressing himself over the bartop and there was nowhere to go. The serving tray crashed into his shoulder and he fell flat on the floor. Before she could grab him, he rolled out of reach and crawled for the nearest table to take cover, as more glasses came shattering down. He had inadvertently started a brawl and there was no stopping the drunken patrons from throwing errant punches and swinging pool cues in any direction.

Jessica stood outside, watching the mass fight take place through the grime covered windows. Matt was somewhere in the melee, scurrying between stomping feet. When he finally emerged, the bottle still tightly held under his arm, Jessica reached down and snatched it.

"Took you long enough."

Matt sighed, as the sound of yelling crested through the door behind him.

Jessica strode down the street, ignoring the chaos behind her, as Matt struggled to catch up.

Less than 10 minutes later they found themselves on a nearby rooftop. Jessica settled on the ledge, with one leg dangling over and one on the tar top. If it was anyone else, Matt would be worried, but Jessica could handle herself - even while drinking. And despite only seeing it once, he knew she could jump, almost fly.

"Are you still out of breath?" Jessica asked as she removed the cap from the tequila bottle.

"I'm not out of breath," he told her, as he nestled himself on the ground beneath her, his back against the ledge she was perched on.

"I was sure the Devil of Hell's Kitchen had better reflexes than that. I've seen them in action."

"I wasn't in action back there," Matt replied, as she passed him the bottle and he took a small sip. He could feel her disapproving eyes on him, so he followed it with a bigger gulp and regretted it once again.

"No kidding. Taken out by a waitress. And to think I was this close to letting you train me," she laughed.

"Glad I could make your night," he replied sheepishly. "Now it's my turn?"

"Your turn?"

"Truth or dare, Miss Jones?"

"Truth," she said, as he gave the bottle back.

"What's really going on between you and Luke?"

"I don't think so, Murdock. I can't ask you about anything important, but you can ask me-"

"So Luke is important to you?"

"Of course he is," she said, before realizing Matt's true meaning. She scoffed. "I mean, like Trish is or…" She couldn't think of anyone else.

"Do you love him?" Matt asked. The question surprised them both.

Jessica took a long drink, swallowing slowly, using the time to think of an answer, an answer she shouldn't have to give. But she didn't want to back out of the game - not like Matt had. She wanted to be honest, but honesty tended to leave her cold.

Finally, after her stomach was full of tequila, she quietly answered, "Not anymore."

Matt nodded, as if he understood what she meant, as if telling her love was complicated and messy and in their line of work all too extreme to be for the best, but Jessica wasn't having his empathy. She swiftly kicked him in the arm. He let out a groan.

"Truth or dare, counselor."

"Truth," he replied, against his better judgement.

"How many canes do you have?"

"What?"

"After we first met and you decided to follow me - badly, I might add - I watched you ditch your cane in the alleyway before front flipping out of there. I assume that's your usual M.O., so how many of those fuckers do you have?"

Matt laughed. He loved how she could turn like that, from dark to light, sad to… well, not happy - he probably hadn't seen her really, truly happy before - but at least she didn't hold a grudge, not against him.

"I buy them in bulk," he told her sarcastically, before rising to the ledge to sit next to her. He reached out for the bottle, his long fingers gently grazing her own, heat rising off her skin.

"What are we doing, Jessica?" he asked tentatively.

"Drinking. Playing some ridiculous game. Waiting for the sun to come up. Take your pick."

"Are we flirting?"

She smiled. "If you are, you're not doing it well."

Matt moved closer to her. "I think I'm doing just fine."

"Let's say you're right, let's say we are flirting, it'd be harmless because as you said earlier, we have more important things to-"

Matt cut her off. "Not now. Not tonight."

"Wow, get a few drinks in you and all that vigilante bullshit goes out the window, huh?"

He didn't know how to reply. He wasn't sure what he was trying to accomplish, but he felt warm and woozy.

"Besides, one of us has that pretty blonde girlfriend, remember? A girlfriend who thinks your dead."

Matt shook his head. "Karen's not my girlfriend."

"Does she know that?"

"Yeah," Matt told her truthfully. "We didn't exactly leave things on great terms."

Jessica clicked her tongue before pulling the bottle from his grasp and taking another swig.

"She wanted to…"

"Date?" Jessica offered.

Matt smiled. "Doesn't that sound crazy? Dating a guy who could die at any moment?"

"Dating a guy who has died," she reminded him. Jessica rested the bottle on the ledge between them. "Is that why things didn't work out between you and Claire?"

Matt raised an eyebrow. "How did you know about me and Claire?"

Jessica opened her mouth, but Matt cut her off. "I know, I know. You're a P.I." Matt sighed. "If I'm out there fighting Fisk or The Hand or whoever and I have to worry about Claire or Karen or…"

"Whoever."

"Yeah. If I have to worry about them then I can't protect the city."

Jessica shook her head from side to side. Matt could see it, her white skin and raven hair awash in red, illuminated by the security lights perched high on a neighbouring building.

"You don't believe me?" he asked.

"I believe you believe it. But it's just an excuse. Luke makes it work with Claire. Colleen inexplicably loves Danny. I mean, really, what does she see in that guy?"

Matt smiled again. He had been smiling all night. He was always smiling with Jessica, even when their lives were at stake, even when their past was creeping into their present, there he was, his cheeks straining with joy.

 _She's right,_ he thought. They had all made it work. Police officers didn't forgo relationships because they had dangerous jobs. Why should he? He had let Claire go, he had ruined their promising beginning by being too stubborn, to short-sighted. And he spent over a year lying to Karen. There was no coming back from that. Perhaps that's why she gravitated to Frank Castle. He killed, but at least he was honest about it.

 _Jessica's right… again._

Taking his cue - a cue he wasn't sure even existed - Matt lifted his arm to the empty space between Jessica's neck and chin, resting his hand on her smooth, pale skin. An errant thumb ran along her jawline and for an instant he thought he felt her lean into his touch. Swiftly, he moved forward, the bottle rocking on the ledge between them, as his torso brushed against it. But then Jessica turned her head away, and he frowned.

"The scientist," she said.

"What?" Matt questioned, his hand still cupping her face.

"The mad scientist from Fisk's warehouse lab."

Matt turned to look at the street, his senses now keenly aware of a short, lumpy man's awkward gate as out of sync footsteps tread along the sidewalk. It dawned on him then that they were working surveillance. Jessica had slung herself over the ledge earlier to get the best view of the street below, of the apartment across the way: the scientist's apartment.

"How did you know where he lived?" he asked, but knew the answer would be the same as before. She was a private investigator. She investigated.

"I knew he'd turn up after that scene at the bar," Jessica told him, her body slipping out of Matt's reach as she leaned forward for a closer look.

"The bar? He was at the bar?"

"Yeah, in the back. Chronic gambler," she said. "I'm telling you almost every asshole I come across is. That or an alcoholic."

"Two birds, one stone," Matt whispered. The mad scientist had been in the back room while they drank their tequila. Jessica must have seen their little game of truth or dare as a way to force him out of there. The fight breaks out, the cops eventually arrive, the gamblers in the back flee, and a drunken scientist stumbles home on a moonless night. _Damn, she was good._

"So we were flirting," Matt finally whispered, as she watched the scientist reach the door of his dilapidated four storey walk-up.

"Huh?" Jessica murmured, barely listening.

"You were stringing me along all night."

"Not quite. But it doesn't really matter because you loved every minute of it," she replied a bit more seductively than she had meant to.

As Jessica moved to stand up and perhaps jump to the street below to catch her prey, Matt reached out for her once more. He wasn't sure why he need to touch her, maybe to convince himself that this night and the things they had shared had been real.

But in his haste, he knocked the bottle off the ledge and listened as it picked up speed on its way down to the sidewalk below. As it hit the cement, the crash echoed off the buildings and rang heavy in his ears.

The scientist looked to the bottle then up to the roof of the building, catching a glimpse of Jessica Jones. He quickly abandoned his plans to go inside and ran down the steps back into the darkness.

"Shit!" Jessica exclaimed before she leapt from the ledge, leaving a dazed, drunk, and defeated Matt Murdock behind.


	22. Act Twenty-Two

"We lost him!" Jessica Jones exclaimed, heaving as she rested her body back against the brick wall. "This is ridiculous. The guy could barely walk without falling over and somehow we lost him."

"He must have ducked into one of these buildings. Maybe a secret door we can't see," Matt Murdock offered as his body slammed against the wall next to her own.

"Well, can you hear a middle aged man wheezing heavily, because if so we have a winner?" she asked him sarcastically.

Matt inhaled deeply trying to calm his frazzled nerves. The tequila had done a number on him. He couldn't focus. A woman laughing. Two men arguing over the sputtering start and stop of their car. A siren wailing in the distance. The moans of late night sex and the jingle of an after hours television infomercial. The noises pressed against one another for dominance in his ear as Matt tried to hone in on one particular sound after another, but it wasn't working.

He couldn't hear the scientist. He shook his head in defeat.

"Okay. Plan B."

Jessica pushed herself off the wall and walked heavy footed back onto the street. Matt followed. He didn't know her next play, but he knew the rest of his evening lay firmly in her grasp.

"I give it less than an hour before Fisk's men clear out the scientist's apartment like they did the warehouse."

"So if we get there first..."

"Maybe we can find something to help us put an end to this."

Matt found himself taking larger strides to keep up with her, to match her determination.

"And when we do, you promise not to go all kung fu fighter on Fisk?" Jessica questioned.

"I thought we wanted to bring him down, put him back in prison."

"Sure, but that's only half the case. You kick his ass and he'll never tell us how he's using Kilgrave's abilities."

"I kick his ass and he never can again."

Jessica chuckled. "You're mighty confident for someone who smells like a distillery."

She was right, of course. It was almost all he could smell. Silver Patron hung in the air, an umbrella swaying above them, shielding him from the aromas of Hell's Kitchen.

"Besides we don't know who else knows about Fisk's plan. Taking him out without getting all the information leaves the potential of too many players out there who could do the same thing."

Jessica could feel that they were close. The _I told you_ so sat at the very edge of her tongue ready to spring forth.

She was done placating the team, done pretending their opinions mattered, done playing nice… well, as nice as she could.

This wasn't about Fisk. Jessica could care less if Matt punched his face flat. This was about Kilgrave. This was about finishing what she started that night on the pier with the crack of his pale, skinny neck. She was prepared to break more bones of it meant stopping what happened to her, Hope Shlottman, and countless others from happening again. Matt, Luke, and Danny couldn't understand that. Having your mind taken over was one thing. Having it taken over as you lay beneath a man thrusting inside you was another. Kilgrave had thrust into her life for the last time.

Jessica kicked the scientist's door with such force it broke free from it's hinges and crashed back into his apartment. The echo of splintering wood made Matt wince. Ignoring his discomfort, his obvious hangover, she began searching the main room. She didn't have Matt's radar sense, but she knew they were alone. And she knew the neighbours wouldn't call the cops. The years' old bullet holes in the hallway and graffiti stained stairs featuring phrases like "Stay Away" and "Fuck the Police" told her as much. These people lived on the fringes and the fringes did it on their own.

"Check the other rooms," Jessica told Matt as she sifted through a pile of loose paper. The scientist's coffee table was covered with it, along with books and pens and empty Red Bull cans. It appeared he was working on a series of mathematical equations or formulas from the foreign numbers littering the pages in her hand, but Jessica couldn't make sense of it. Scanning the room she noticed the couch, set up as a bed with a worn in pillow and dirty blanket.

 _If he sleeps here then…_

"Jessica," Matt said from what should have been the bedroom.

Jessica turned down the narrow hall and into the first room on her right. Matt was standing just inside the doorway, his back to her. The light from a nearby billboard partially shone through the window. It caught on all the glass in the room, reflecting against the walls and ceiling and floor. Even though the overhead light remained off, the room was lit. Jessica wondered what it must look like to Matt. The mad scientist's lab awash in yellow and red.

As Matt moved further into the room, his hand brushing along the long edge of the workstation, Jessica followed. On the far left wall stood a bookshelf lined top to bottom with beakers and various broken and dust covered microscopes. The desk, like the coffee table in the front room, was littered with paper, each featuring a kaleidoscope of multi-coloured doodles and nonsensical ramblings.

The clanking of instruments broke Jessica's concentration and she turned to see Matt fiddling with a decades old centrifuge. He pulled from it's grimy depth a vial filled with blood.

"Yours?" he asked.

Jessica shrugged her shoulders in reply.

"What do you think he was doing in here?"

She sighed. "I hate to say this, but I think Danny was right." The words cut against her tongue like a dull razor. "If I'm immune to Kilgrave and now to Fisk, then they need to find out why."

"And weaponize it," Matt said sadly. He picked up several vials from the table, each empty, but coated lightly in their former contents. He held them up to the artificial light that continued to stream though the window. "This wasn't blood," he told her assuredly, his heightened scenes slowly returning to him.

"No, it couldn't be. I didn't sit for a long enough needle season."

"So that means these were, what? The prototypes of whatever it is this madman was making?"

"I guess," Jessica said. She wasn't good at science or math or really any of the classes in high school that put her to sleep. But she was smart enough to know that if those vials were empty it meant experimentation had begun… maybe even finished.

"Okay, let me get my head around this," Matt said, as he rested against the only clean surface available. "Whatever was in these was a… potion," he continued, his voice dripping with incredulity. "And if they're empty that means Fisk has already taken them. So if this experiment worked then he's already figured out how to control you. He's already stronger than before."

"I don't know. Were those all questions, Murdock?" Jessica asked.

"Well, I-"

Jessica groaned before he could finish. "Can we just be done this part? The part where you doubt that this is happening, because it is."

Matt nodded in response. She was right, again. This was happening. Fisk wouldn't have funded someone to play scientist without reason. It began to sink in and settle in the deepest places of his mind. _It's happening. It's been happening. What have we done?_

Those men who followed Fisk unquestioningly, the men they had unceremoniously fought - and killed - in the warehouse could have been good. They could have been workers and fathers and productive New Yorkers. They could have been screaming on the inside, begging for him to listen, but all Matt could hear was the sound of their bones breaking against his fist.

As Matt slumped forward, the vial in his hand fell to the floor and shattered into tiny pieces.

"What is it?" Jessica asked, rushing to his side. He was holding his head and she assumed he could hear or smell or sense someone coming. Were they about to be under attack? But as Matt looked up, she could see the sorrow behind his sunglasses.

"We killed those men," he told her and she knew instantly what was happening. She could read guilt the way he could read people. It was her nighttime companion and something she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy, let alone someone she was close to considering a friend.

"I killed those men," Jessica reminded him. She had thrown a car at them and she didn't need Matt's super hearing to know their bodies crumpled like paper beneath it. In the two nights that had passed since, Jessica had replayed the scene in her mind again and again. Watching Fisk's men jump to their deaths that first night, the night they fled Matt's loft, had been painful enough. But Jessica knew she couldn't have prevented that. She could barely have predicted it.

Yet, that night in the warehouse she knew those men were no different than she had once been. Sure, odds are they weren't society's best. Fisk probably found them on the fringes. Maybe they were thieves or drunks or deadbeat dads. Maybe they had taken a wrong turn on a moonless night in Hell's Kitchen and found themselves face-to-face with Wilson Fisk - an already scary sight, but even more terrifying when they discovered his command to stay, follow, and fight was one they literally could not ignore.

She had tried to convince herself early on that the men in his charge were leftover henchmen from before he went to prison. Even if they were under his control, they had once willingly followed him and therefore they were asking to be casualties in this brewing war. But Jessica understood the street, and no thug would wait patiently for their leader to spring himself from jail. She knew Fisk would have had to amass a new army. She knew she had been killing potentially innocent men the minute the car left her hands.

But it was Trish - they had hurt Trish - and there was no coming back from the rage that elicited.

Matt, oblivious to Jessica's own inner turmoil, thrust himself angrily against the table next to him, forcing most of the contents to fly to the floor.

"Whoa," Jessica cried out in response. She wasn't used to seeing Matt so tormented. She was usually the one playing that hand. "Just calm down."

The sound of Matt's quickened breathing, in and out, in and out, began to fill the room. To Jessica it appeared he was hyperventilating. She quickly scanned the area for a paper bag, but there was nothing useful to be found in the mess that surrounded them. Tentatively she placed her hand on his back and began rubbing it gently in circles, round and round, as Matt clung to his own knees, hunched over and wheezing.

Guilt was a monster she had yet to slay herself, and she had been battling it for years. Matt was Catholic and recently dead. Something told her his own fight with it was far from over.

But she hated to see him this way, hearing the sadness in his voice and smelling the tequila that burst from his pores as he began to sweat. She hated knowing she was partially responsible. She was the reason Fisk was after them - fuck his feud with Matt, it was her own immunity he wanted. And she was the reason he had these powers in the first place. At least she was telling herself so.

 _Why didn't I bury him? Or burn him? Or drown him?_ Jessica thought. Why had she assumed death was the answer to her troubles with Kilgrave? She should have known evil always rises.

She was the reason those men were dead. She was the reason their team was down one member. She was the reason Matt was reeling through the waking stages of a hangover.

"I'm sorry," she told him, her hand still lightly caressing his back. She could feel his breathing steady under her touch. "I wish you weren't involved in any of this. I really do. But this is what Kilgrave does. He makes you doubt everything you know. He makes you hate yourself."

"But I haven't been mind controlled," Matt reminded her.

"Not yet," said a voice from the doorway.

Before Jessica could turn and react, she was being pushed, hard. Her hand left Matt's back, her feet left the floor, and her body lunged toward the window. Without really understanding what was happening, she felt her body smash into the glass and she was suddenly hurling down four storeys to the asphalt road below.

Jessica landed with a thud so heavy it demolished the street beneath her.

Her body had rocked the desk just in front of the window, and as she lay there on the ground, she could see and hear the remnants crash alongside her. Paper, glass beakers, and the loud smash of something unknown just near her head.

Through a fog of confusion, Jessica looked up to where she had once been and saw Wilson Fisk standing at the glassless window.

She tried to move, but pain shot through her right arm. Looking down she noticed a huge piece of glass sticking out of her skin. Blood began to pool around her, filling the cracks in the street. Ignoring it, swallowing the agony, Jessica pulled it out and pulled herself up. But it was too late.

Fisk and Matt were already exiting the building. The walked right past her and Matt made no attempt to flee.

Sadly, Jessica knew exactly what that meant.

"Matt!" she screamed, but again, he gave no hint of recognition.

"Get in the car," Fisk told him, and Matt obeyed, sliding into the backseat of the black SUV that was parked just before her.

"Fisk! Hey, Fisk," Jessica cried out. "Why don't we play a little game?"

She was trying to walk toward them, but something told her she had broken an ankle or maybe even her leg. She felt crooked, her whole body leaning to the right, forcing more blood from her wound to drip down her limp arm.

"Why don't we see if all that hard work up there really paid off?"

Jessica was taunting him. She assumed the scientist's tests hadn't worked or she would have been ordered out nicely, rather than body checked through a window. But she couldn't be sure. He hadn't really said anything to her, at least not yet.

Suddenly, the sound of flames crackling caught her attention and looking up Jessica realized the scientist's apartment was on fire.

"Come on, Fisk," she baited, still looking up into the flames. Then she turned to him, the reflection of fire dancing in her already rage filled eyes. "Or are you afraid?"

"Stay here," Fisk commanded Matt, before exiting the car and stomping towards Jessica. He was smiling. That smile always unnerved her, but she stood her ground.

"I don't know why, Miss Jones, but I like you. Even when you're destroying my plans, I like you," he told her, as he took the last step to cross their divide.

"I have that effect on people," she replied with a sly smile.

"So I see," Fisk said, motioning back towards Matt. He was still sitting in the SUV staring straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to the drama unfolding around him.

Fisk leaned closer to Jessica. She struggled to balance herself on her one good leg. "You may have thought you tamed him, Miss Jones, but the Devil of Hell's Kitchen was always a weapon and I plan to unleash him on this city."

"I thought you wanted to kill him."

"Who's to say I can't do both?"

The fire above them spilled out of the window, as flames licked the side of the building and crawled to the roof. The few souls who were inside had already stumbled to the street and were watching not only their home burn, but the standoff between Jessica Jones and Wilson Fisk in the orange glow castoff by the flames.

"Matt's stronger than you think. You won't be able to control him for long," Jessica told him. "Your powers are weak and you've just destroyed all the shit you were using to make them better."

Fisk chuckled. The sound was so low Jessica strained to hear it even though they were face-to-face.

"If you think that was my lab, Miss Jones, you haven't been doing your homework. Running across the city, asking questions about me, beating people for the answers and this is all you were able to find. I'm disappointed. Your reputation once preceded you, but maybe this case is too much."

Fisk looked down to the street, to the contents of the lab that found themselves strewn around them. Jessica followed his gaze. There, right next to where her head had been, was a large glass jar. The glass had long since shattered and the amber liquid inside spilled onto the asphalt. But in the debris they could both clearly see a severed hand.

"I have the rest of him, Miss Jones. Trust me when I tell you, this lab was only the beginning."

Jessica turned back to face him.

"Now get in the car," he told her. Jessica didn't move. Fisk sighed. "It was worth a try."

Swiftly and with more force than she was expecting, Fisk grabbed her throat and in one motion picked her up and slammed her body to the ground. She felt the broken bits of road stab her in the back as he came down on her again and again like a gorilla. One hand wrapped around her neck, the other crashing repeatedly into her face and chest.

Jessica didn't stop him. Even in her dilapidated state, she was sure she could press through the pain and break him like a twig. After all, he was only a man. But something held her to the ground, something more powerful than his clammy hand.

Luke was gone. Trish was gone. Matt was gone to a place she wasn't sure she could bring him back from. Her investigative leads were burning just four storeys above and there on the ground next to her lay what was once a tiny sliver of the key to all this - Kilgrave's hand, now cold, dead, and useless.

Jessica was losing hope… and it wasn't something she usually had in large supply. It drained from her along with her blood, and for a moment she wondered what it would be like to close her eyes, to truly rest.

As Fisk's hand crushed her throat, she almost welcomed the strained breathing and dance with unconsciousness. Maybe when she woke up, this would all be over.


	23. Act Twenty-Three

The sound of distant voices pulled Jessica Jones from her staggered slumber. She was lying on an unfamiliar bed, her jacket and shirt discarded on a nearby chair. Looking down, she could see her arm wound had been recently patched and a shift in her body weight allowed her to feel the bandages on her back stretch and move.

She winced as she sat up, and looking back to the place she had once been, saw tiny traces of blood. Apparently those bandages weren't doing their job.

Reaching up to her neck, she could feel the bruise under her smooth fingers. She could feel the raised skin and imagined it to be various shades of black and blue. It made her cringe. Not the mark, but the memory of it, the memory of Wilson Fisk's hand tightly wound against her pale skin.

Jessica remembered her final thoughts before unconsciousness took hold of her - thoughts of giving up. But now she was awake again and her problems hadn't gone away. In fact, they had grown bigger. The bruise was a reminder of how she'd let Matt Murdock go without a fight.

The creak of old wood, footsteps down the hall, snapped Jessica back to the present and she began to once again scan her surroundings. The room was free of clutter. No books on the night side table, no pictures hanging on the wall, no knickknacks on the dresser. The only identifiable items were the leftover bandages and gauze sitting on the floor by the bed, along with a pair of discarded latex gloves.

Jessica groaned as she realized the team was back together again.

"You're awake," Claire said as she entered the room.

"Seems that way," Jessica replied, without a hint of surprise in her voice. Of course Claire had bandaged her up. _Who else?_

"How long have I been out?"

"A couple of hours," Claire told her. She picked up Jessica's shirt from the chair and moved to throw it to her before catching sight of the blood stains. For a moment Jessica wondered if she would offer her something cleaner - if there was something cleaner - but Claire just shrugged and tossed the shirt Jessica's way. Claire Temple was getting far too used to all of this.

As Jessica eased into the shirt, she tilted her head trying to see beyond Claire and into the next room where the voices had been coming from.

"Who else is out there?

"Danny and Colleen."

"And where is here?" Jessica asked, a grimace painted on her face as she finally stood. She was wobbly, and looking down Jessica could tell her ankle was swollen. Perhaps it had been broken, but with her healing powers one could never be sure.

"It's a safe house, I guess," Claire answered, making no effort to help Jessica hobble toward her boots at the end of the bed. "Danny's company owns the building."

Jessica assumed Claire's indifference was residual anger - Luke must have told her about their head-to-head fight just days before. Jessica couldn't blame her. She had her own loyal sidekick, someone who would hold her anger for her if the burden ever got too big. The problem was Jessica didn't like to relinquish it, and so her sidekick was always on the outside looking in. Even in her hour of need that sidekick was miles away. Hopefully, so far away that what happened to Matt could never happen to her - not again.

As Jessica pressed herself into her black boots, Danny came barrelling through the door.

"She's awake!" he exclaimed.

"Can't get anything past you," Jessica mumbled to herself.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Like I was just pushed out a window and then punched into submission," she replied dryly.

"Well, at least you're alive," Colleen offered. She had been hot on Danny's heels.

Jessica knew they all meant well - hell, they always meant well - but the room was too small and smelled too much of blood for them to be crammed inside.

"Where's Matt?" Claire asked, and it suddenly dawned on Jessica that they had no idea he was now under Fisk's control. How could they? They weren't there.

As if a light bulb flashed on inside her mind, Jessica asked, "How did I get here?"

"Oh, it was Luke," Danny said, his voice dripping with admiration. "He carried you along Riverside, from Hell's Kitchen to Harlem."

 _Of course he did,_ Jessica thought, annoyance colouring her features.

"Where is he now?" she asked.

Before Danny could replied, Claire interrupted, "Where's Matt?"

Jessica sighed. She didn't want to answer. A small part of her didn't want them to worry, despite the dire circumstances. A much larger part of her just didn't want to talk. Every time something bad happened they needed to have a meeting about it. She could only imagine the kind of strategy sessions they would require knowing Matt wasn't Matt anymore.

Still, keeping it from them wouldn't help. She had failed him in the bar when she got him drunk. She had failed him in the apartment when she found herself on the other side of the window glass instead of by his side. And she had failed him on the street below when she allowed Fisk to walk away.

"Seriously, Jessica," Claire continued. "What aren't you telling us?"

"Fisk has Matt." She said it coolly, calmly, as if it was nothing at all, but the looks on everyone's faces only confirmed for her how horrible the situation was.

"Has him? Like he was kidnapped?" Danny asked.

"Not exactly," Jessica replied. "That thing I told you guys about, that whole Fisk has Kilgrave's mind control powers and he's going to use them to terrorize the city… you remember that, right? Well, he used them on Matt. He didn't have to kidnap him. He just asked him to get in his car and Matt obeyed."

Danny and Claire stood dumbfounded, but to Colleen's credit she only nodded in reply. Jessica appreciated that she was true to her word, that she had believed her all along.

"So what do we do now?" Luke Cage asked from the doorway.

Immediately, his presence was overpowering and Jessica watched as the other three ceded. Without Matt, Jessica wondered if Luke would step up to lead. The thought turned her stomach. She wouldn't follow another man - not again.

 _This time they follow me._

"Outside," Jessica said to Luke, before elbowing her way through the small crowd and into the narrow hallway. She slowly hobbled to the front door of the apartment, placing more and more weight on her ankle with every stride. When she reached it and discovered they weren't on the ground floor, she gave in to the pain and sat on the first available step in the shared hallway.

She hadn't looked back, but Luke's walk was heavy. She knew he had been behind her the whole way and when he pressed his body next to hers on the step it almost felt like old times. Almost.

"I don't want to play the apology game," she began.

"Good. I wasn't going to apologize," Luke replied.

"Great. So we both agree you're an ass and we can leave it at that."

"Geez, Jessica," Luke sighed. "Matt is gone and you want to crack wise."

Jessica shook her head. "I'm not cracking wise," she told him, hating the phrase. "I'm being honest. I've always been honest with you."

Luke arched an eyebrow.

"I've _almost_ always been honest with you," she corrected. "And honestly, you were an ass the other day. I've taken it from you before and I was cool with it given our… history. But after Midland Circle I kinda thought we were done fucking each other over."

"My not believing you wasn't meant to drive us apart," Luke told her.

Jessica laughed. "Yeah. What did you think it was going to do?"

"Midland Circle was just one shit thing in a span of really shitty things I've had to deal with, Jess. And not all of them were about you, you know."

"So you keep reminding me."

Luke leaned forward, his head in his hands, and Jessica pressed back on her elbows. For a while they sat in silence like that. Him thinking too hard and her relaxing too much. But they were both aware Matt Murdock was out there, somewhere, experiencing the same thing they had. He was out there fighting on the inside to be heard on the outside while a madman controlled his every move.

Luke cracked first. "Let's just put a pause on this. At least until we can get Matt back."

"And stop Fisk," Jessica added.

Luke nodded in reply.

"So we pretend everything is fine."

"Well, as fine as it can be when it comes to us," Luke reminded her and Jessica couldn't help but smile.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Can we go over the plan again?" Danny asked, pulling at the collar of his white button up shirt.

"No, we can't," Jessica coldly replied.

Claire sighed. "All you have to do is go in there and take some pictures of this month's rentals and buys."

"We're looking for something with style. Big money. Maybe a loft or a condo," Luke reminded him.

"They're not going to just give me that information," Danny said meekly.

"For fuck's sake," Jessica growled as she stomped towards him. She reached out, and for a second Danny flinched causing her to smile. But she wasn't interested in hitting him, at least not yet. Instead she grabbed his tie and began fixing the knot. "You're rich. You own Rand Enterprises. You have buildings all over the city, as evidenced earlier today. You just want access to a list of your holdings."

"Use your charm if you have to," Luke suggested.

Jessica snorted, aggressively tightening the tie in response. "I don't care what you do, just get the real estate records for this month."

The four of them were standing on the street one block from the Real Estate Board of New York. Colleen was at City Hall looking through country records. Jessica shook her head when thinking of the fact that she didn't need an escort or a minute-by-minute rehash of the plan. Jessica had no fear Colleen would find what they were after - if it was there to find at all.

 _Danny, on the other hand_... Jessica stopped herself. Thinking up new nicknames to describe his ineptitude would have to wait. Right now he needed support.

"You'll be fine," Jessica told him, but no one believed it, least of all her. As Danny walked away from them down the street, Luke and Claire took off in the opposite direction. Everyone was manning their stations. The plan had begun.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

From her perch high atop the building, Jessica was reminded of being in that very spot with Matt by her side, just 12 hours before. If only she had known their collective hangover and subsequent weakened abilities would have led to all of this she would have let Matt call it quits after three rounds of tequila. But she had been having fun, despite herself and despite the secretive mission she'd made him a part of. She had wanted to stay and drink and laugh and live inside a normal moment, even if it was fleeting.

Without truly realizing it, Matt had become more than a teammate, more than a friend. He had gotten inside of her head and her heart and she didn't like feeling that way. It only compounded her ever mounting guilt. Yet, there it was - real emotions where Matt Murdock was concerned.

Staring at the remnants of the scientist's burnt apartment building, the exterior walls stained black, she silently pleaded with the universe to let him return. Perhaps he didn't know his place has succumb to fire the night before. Or maybe he did, but after the sun set again he would feel compelled to come back and claim whatever was left unburnt.

Jessica knew curiosity was a strong motivator, and she hoped against hope that in this case it would force the scientist to do something stupid, something reckless, and then she'd have him.

Three hours later, Jessica finally gave in to the pain in her back and neck and shoulders and leaned back against the ledge. She stretched as only she could, her long, lean limbs spidering out in each direction, a faint yawn escaping her lips. If she had been carrying a cell phone, she was sure Luke or Danny or Claire or Colleen would have called by now to tell her of their progress. But she had lost it somewhere in the melee the night before. It had probably been beaten out of her pocket by Fisk and then snatched by someone looking for a quick buck. Jessica smiled at the thought. Her phone was a piece of shit, having been in one too many fights. That buck was going to be small.

Looking at the sky as it turned from blue to yellow to dark orange, Jessica wondered where Matt was. She remembered Fisk's promise to weaponize him, and she couldn't help but picture Matt gearing up for attack as the sun went down. Would Fisk unleash him on the city like Godzilla, running from place to place causing mayhem? Or did he have a specific plan for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen?

Either way, Jessica was sure whatever Fisk was up to it meant the end of Matt Murdock's former death. Soon people would know the devil was back. Soon that blonde Karen would know Matt was back. And soon they would all grow to fear him.

That part stung the worst for Jessica, hitting her in the gut like a punch from Luke Cage.

Matt had spent nearly two years waging battle against the scum of this city. He had saved countless people, young and old, rich and poor, men and women. He was out there night after night helping them, giving them hope. It terrified her to think all that hard work would be wiped away. It also terrified her that she cared so damn much.

When Matt awoke from the mind control - _and he will_ \- he would have nothing left to show for the promise he made his city. New York would hate him and she knew he would hate himself.

The crunch of glass broke her train of thought and Jessica looked down to the street. The scientist was walking up the front steps of his building, debris catching his shoes as he went inside. Jessica took her cue and quickly followed.

As the scientist reached the door to his apartment, Jessica grabbed him from behind and spun him around. His back landed on the wall with a loud thud.

"I've been punched, kicked, choked, shot at, and stabbed with your little needle. And I've been pretty great about the whole thing. But now you have my friend. Now I'm pissed. So tell me what I want to know or… well, you know what the _or_ is."

The scientist squirmed, but Jessica tightened her grip. He was now off the ground, his feet dangling in the air, his back still pressed against the wall.

"I don't know where your friend is!" he shouted.

"I don't believe you," she told him, but she wasn't sure yet. Maybe he didn't know. Fisk didn't seem like the kind of guy who revealed his secrets to every lackey in the bunch. But the scientist was the one allowing him to weaponize Matt. The scientist had to know more than most.

"I really don't know. I swear. I swear!"

As an errant foot kicked her in the leg, Jessica used her free hand to slap him in the face, hard. The scientist shrieked. "No kicking," she told him.

"Okay, okay," he replied. "Please let me down. I don't know anything."

Jessica slapped him again. The crack of her hand against his skin echoed in the now abandoned building. "Let's say you have no idea where my friend is-"

"Yes! Yes! I have no idea!"

Another smack. "I wasn't done. Let's say you have no idea about that, you do know about what was going on in here. You know what was in those vials. You know why Fisk took my blood. Tell me that and I won't kill you."

The scientist smiled, then winced in pain from the sting on his cheek.

"What's so funny?"

"You won't kill me," the scientist told her. "You're a superhero."

Jessica leaned in close, her face nearly resting on his own. "You used to keep a hand in a jar. The hand of the man I killed. So don't tell me what I will or will not do, okay?"

The scientist silently nodded and Jessica released him from the wall before pushing him inside the apartment. The walls were black and the wood floor splintered in pieces. Jessica looked down and could see the apartment below in parts. She almost warned the scientist to watch his step, but then she thought if he fell she could just interrogate him one storey lower. And perhaps he would have an injury she wouldn't have to claim on her own tab.

The scientist stumbled to the couch and sat down, but immediately jumped up. It was still wet, having been sprayed down by a fireman's hose.

"Talk," Jessica ordered.

"Yes, I did experiments with your blood," he told her.

"Why?"

"Mr. Fisk said you couldn't be controlled and he needed to know why. But there is no why. I couldn't find a reason. He didn't like that so he ordered me to make a retrovirus using genetic material from the hand."

"Wait. What?" Jessica found herself losing the plot just as it started.

"Simply put, a retrovirus copies your DNA… well, as best it can. Your body doesn't know the difference and eventually accepts the virus. Once it does the virus begins to replicate like any cell would, over and over again."

"Meaning what? You put Kilgrave into Fisk?"

The scientist rubbed his head. "I don't know who Kilgrave is."

"The hand!"

"Oh, then yeah. But it didn't work."

"It didn't?"

"No. I tried and tried, but the ability wouldn't last. The virus wouldn't reproduce in Mr. Fisk's body."

"So how does he have the power in the first place? Small doses of this virus?"

The scientist shook his head from side to side. "No. When I met him, he already had the ability. That's why I left a tenured position at New York University and moved here. He made me."

Jessica's eyes narrowed. She wondered if the man before her was still under Fisk's control. There was a time Luke had forgiven her for Reva's death. To her it had been a moment of absolution. But he had been under Kilgrave's mind control. He had merely been an actor in some sick play.

Yet, from what she had witnessed and what she had heard, Jessica believed Fisk's powers were fleeting. He could have stayed that night at the warehouse and captured Matt then. In fact, she was sure he had planned to. The whole thing smacked of a trap - Fisk had even alluded to knowing Matt would rush to the rescue. But nothing happened. They escaped to fight another day. Perhaps his powers had worn off before he could enact his plan.

Jessica hoped his powers had long since run their course on the scientist.

"So you have no idea what made him this way?" Jessica asked.

"I just assumed someone else like me was working…" the word caught in the scientist's throat. "Being used by him."

"Another doctor? Another scientist?"

"Maybe."

"So each of you would have one piece of the plan."

"I don't know. I guess that's possible," the scientist replied. "He just told me what to do and I did it. I didn't ask questions."

"No, of course not," Jessica said. "So how long have you been here?"

The scientist shook his head. "A week? I'm not sure. It feels like a lifetime."

Jessica was familiar with the feeling. Time was something Kilgrave couldn't control, but he had the ability to make it feel so slow you prayed for death.

"Did Fisk every take you anywhere? Anywhere other than the warehouse?"

"No."

"Did you see him with anyone? Not the guys with guns, but maybe a business associate from his past or... Vanessa? Did you ever see him with a woman named Vanessa?"

"No."

"So all you did was make a virus that didn't work?"

"Basically, yeah."

"So you were pretty useless, if you think about it," Jessica said, chuckling. But the more she thought about it he did seem useless. Why use him? Why keep him alive? Something wasn't adding up here.

"And you're sure there are other scientists involved?"

"Like I said, I don't know. But I don't have enough equipment here to complete his plan."

Jessica's eyes flashed with confusion and the scientist caught her glare. "I thought you didn't know his whole plan."

The scientist began to sweat, his hands began to shake. It was then Jessica realized he'd been watching the door behind her the whole time.

 _Damn,_ she thought. She had been led.

The scientist was bait. Fisk knew she would return looking for him and so he served him on a platter. There was no position at NYU. Tenured professors usually don't gamble until 3AM in dirty bars in Hell's Kitchen. Especially ones supposedly under mind control.

 _Damn, damn, damn!_

She had let her emotions for Matt cloud her judgment. She had leapt headlong into another faulty plan.

"Who's coming?" she asked the scientist.

"What?" he said nervously.

"You've been stalling me," she told him. "Who's coming? Is it Fisk?"

The scientist's eyes darted to the door once again, giving away the position of the man behind her. Jessica dodged to her left. Thankfully the man was right handed, and she moved herself away from the amber filled syringe in his hand. As she struggled to find her footing on the rotted and burnt floor, the man lunged toward her - then in an instant was pulled back again with a loud yelp. The sound of him crashing through the wall of the adjacent apartment filled the space.

Tentatively, Luke Cage stepped into the room, filling the doorway as he always did, blocking the scientist's escape.

Jessica turned to their prey, ready to unload not only more questions, but a few punches, when the scientist pressed himself back against the now glassless window.

"No, don't!" Jessica cried out, but it was too late. The scientist thrust himself backwards and out into the late afternoon air. By the time Luke and Jessica made it downstairs, his insides were already staining broken pieces of the road where Jessica had once been.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Why would he tell you all that?" Luke asked, as he and Jessica walked back to the safe house. There were only half-way there by the time she'd finished recounting the story.

"I don't know. To stall me."

"But he gave away Fisk's secrets."

"Did he?" Jessica questioned. "We don't know much more than we did before."

"Well, we know there are other scientists out there. And we know they're probably working for him of their own free will. Why would they do that?"

"I don't know," she told him honestly. "But he probably knew where Matt was. Fuck! I believed him. I believed he was just some stooge and I missed my chance to find out where they're holding Murdock."

Jessica stopped. The anger was welling up inside of her. She wanted to scream or punch something, someone.

"We'll find him," Luke said. Even if he was wrong, Jessica was comforted by the knowledge that they were working together once again.

She nodded in reply, then took a few minutes to herself, thinking, silently cursing her latest actions, before finding her stride again. "Hey," she said after a minute. "Thanks for that back there."

"You weren't back yet, so I thought something must be wrong."

"And you were right. Something was wrong. This whole thing is wrong."

Luke didn't say anything. Jessica knew there was nothing to say. She just hoped Danny and Colleen had made more progress. She hoped there was a scrap of good news waiting for her in Harlem.

"Damn," she suddenly said.

"What is it?"

"I just realized I have to thank you again," she sighed.

Luke chuckled. "For what?"

"Rescuing me last night. Twice in one day. A new record?" she asked.

"For me, yeah. For you… no. You were always good at rescuing people."

Jessica shook her head. He was remembering their past wrong on purpose. He was trying to make her feel better. It was working.

"I never asked you, but how did you know I was out on the street bleeding to death?"

Luke smiled. "Someone took a picture. It was on Instagram."

"Of course it was."


	24. Act Twenty-Four

Jessica Jones and Danny Rand stood on the corner of West 37th and 10th Avenue, just a few buildings down from the spacious condominium owned by Wilson Fisk. It wasn't where he had lived during his arrest, but rather an asset he acquired while behind bars; one he hid well from the authorities. The three bedroom, two bath, glass and brick home in the sky was listed under the name of Vanessa Fisk. Not the most clever of aliases, but when the refurbished pre-war condo was bought, no one was looking - so Fisk barely had to hide.

The cynical among them - Jessica and Colleen - believed the timing of the purchase was no coincidence, just six weeks before Fisk walked out of prison.

Danny's trip to the Real Estate Board had been a bust, but he had decided to dig deeper. He'd gone back to Rand Enterprises and used their considerable power to find the notaries on all legal documents pertaining to anyone called Fisk in the last six months. Then he used his wallet to pay them into talking. According to the records Danny had read, Fisk's lawyer moved money from one account to another until it settled in Vanessa's hands. She had bought the condo. She had been back in New York City for just over a month.

If Jessica hadn't been so continually flustered by Danny's mere presence she might have been impressed by all he had uncovered. Instead she thought, _finally._

To Jessica and Colleen the purchase of the condo meant Fisk knew he would be free soon. Why would he summon her back from Europe and ensure they had suitably lavish accommodations if he was planning on serving the remainder of his lengthy sentence?

To Jessica alone it also meant Fisk wasn't planning on his newfound Kilgrave powers to work, or else he could have simply walked into a condo, house, or mansion and willed the owners to give it to him. Whatever mind control abilities Fisk had gained, he'd done so in the last month. Jessica relished having a timeline. She finally felt as if she were only a few pieces short of making the puzzle whole.

But she hadn't slept well the night before, as those same clues rattled inside her head. Finally, guilt abruptly woke her at 4am, viciously reminding her that Matt Murdock was still out there, somewhere, under Fisk's control.

It's not as if she had forgotten him - that wasn't possible. But the team had made a decision early after Matt's abduction was known: they would ignore it, for now. The thought had gnawed at each of them, especially since they knew Matt would never do the same. But Trish and Foggy were still in hiding, the scientist's apartment lab and all the evidence inside was destroyed, his body was still splayed in the street, and the team was just settling into a quiet yet raw peace after the fallout between Jessica and Luke.

Looking for Matt, placing all their resources into that basket, wouldn't solve the mystery of why or how. Jessica was done being reactive. She didn't want to know where Fisk had been. She wanted find out where he was going and get there first. In doing so they all hoped Matt would be waiting there for them, ready to be rescued.

But it had only been a few days and Jessica was already regretting their collective choices and itched to break out on her own and find Matt.

That was why she and Danny were staking out Fisk's new neighbourhood. He thought they were on routine reconnaissance, just getting the lay of the land. But Jessica wanted to see Matt.

By 9am she'd spotted the next best thing: Vanessa. Her picture had been in the paper numerous times following Wilson Fisk's arrest and so Jessica recognized her instantly. She was beautiful and impeccably dressed. Even in New York City a woman of her caliber stood out. To Jessica, it made her easy to follow.

"Keep an eye out for Fisk," Jessica told Danny as she pushed herself off the wall they'd been sharing.

"Where are you going?" he asked, surprised.

"Coffee," she called to him as she stealthy navigated the flow of people and moved across the street. She heard Danny call after her, probably putting in an order for green tea, but she ignored him.

Vanessa ducked into a store less than a block from where Jessica had first spotted her. For a moment, Jessica wondered if she had been made already. But Vanessa emerged in short order with what appeared to be a bag of croissants.

Jessica knew that had Matt been with her they could have eased back and leisurely followed Vanessa without fear of being caught. He would have used his nose to sniff out those breakfast breads all around the city, if need be. But she was on her own - the way she liked it… most of the time.

Soon Vanessa entered what appeared to be the offices of an accountant inside a brownstone that had seen better days. Jessica waited patiently - a virtue she rarely had in supply. Finally, Vanessa emerged. The bag of croissants was gone. Now she carried an accordion file folder, tucked neatly under her arm.

It continued that way for over 35 minutes, Vanessa darting in and out of stores throughout the neighbourhood. She never took a taxi, everything was within walking distance of her new condo - even in her ultra sleek high heels.

A package picked up from one location found its way to the next, and Jessica quickly understood that each business was a quiet front for something else. She remembered what the scientist had told her:

 _I don't have enough equipment here..._

Jessica had assumed this meant there were more shitty apartment labs tucked away throughout the city, but they could just as easily be in the back rooms of bakeries or CPA offices or corner stores. But even then, why would Vanessa need to take something from one and pass it to another? What could they be doing? And were they really working for Wilson Fisk?

The scientist had been a contradiction in terms. He hadn't been a professor, he hadn't been under mind control, he hadn't truly been afraid of Fisk despite his actions in the warehouse. He had stalled her long enough to see Matt Murdock taken. He played her and she foolishly hadn't realized what was truly going on until it was too late.

Each time she felt the puzzle was finally coming together, another corner piece turned on it's side to reveal grooved edges that seemingly had no fit.

As she waited for Vanessa to emerge from a local coin dealer's nearly derelict storefront, Jessica's cell phone buzzed, the vibration sending a small jolt from the back pocket of her jeans. Fishing it out, she saw it was a text from Danny. He wanted to know where she had gone.

Jessica ignored it, leaving him guessing. But just a minute later there came another buzz, followed by an exaggerated sigh.

 _I see Fisk._

The text blared at her like an air horn, jarring her equilibrium.

 _He's on the move. Should I follow?_

No, never, Jessica wanted to shout into her phone. Danny would surely give their operation away. If anyone was to follow Fisk it would be her.

She texted back, _Don't follow. What direction is he headed?_

Jessica was reluctant to leave her tail on Vanessa. Yes, Fisk was the target but after what both he and Kilgrave before him had done to Trish it proved to Jessica that family was not off limits. In fact, family was sometimes the only way to turn the knife and produce answers.

Vanessa's presence in New York, their money and where it came from, the location of the condo they bought - especially in relation to the stores Vanessa was now visiting - could all be tied together. Or they could be red herrings. Jessica couldn't be sure, but her gut told her it was the former. Her gut was rarely wrong. What Vanessa was doing now was the key.

Danny's reply broke her train of thought.

 _He's headed north on 10th Avenue... and Matt's with him._

Fuck the key.

In an instant Jessica turned and ran back the way she came, her boots clashing heavily with the sidewalk. She pushed people aside, no stealth tactics involved, as they shouted back at her. She didn't care. She wasn't thinking. She felt compelled to get to Matt - as if her own form of mind control was taking hold, one that threw caution to the wind, one that cared not about the mission, but rather the man.

"Hey!" she heard Danny scream. He was behind her, chasing after her as she continued to move upstream against the throngs of people on the busy street. "I thought we were just watching," Danny added as he caught up with her. She could tell he was slightly out of breath.

"I know, I know," Jessica replied, because she did know. If they came upon Fisk - if they came upon a mind controlled Matt - there were sure to be others, as Fisk never travelled alone. Which meant she and Danny would be outnumbered.

"Look, we have confirmation that's where he lives," Danny told her, as he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back "We can tell the others and come back, stake it out proper next time. Maybe make an assault plan."

Jessica wretched herself from Danny's gentle hold. She moved against him too forcefully. He was only trying to help. But Jessica didn't want his help. The night they had decided to follow the money trail, follow the condo purchase, find Fisk and perhaps Vanessa too, was a mistake. Jessica wished that night could be washed from existence. Not only had she allowed Fisk to take control of Matt, but she had agreed - even suggested - they not search for him. Now it was her chance to rectify that.

"We have no way of knowing what Fisk plans to do with him… what he plans to make him do," Jessica told Danny. "We have to at least follow them."

Danny quickly nodded in reply. Jessica wondered if he too wanted to save Matt sooner rather than later. But it didn't matter. Even if Danny had refused to go, she would have followed Fisk. She wasn't looking for approval.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hours later, Jessica and Danny found themselves just as they had started the day, huddled together against a brick wall. This time it was in a different part of the neighbourhood, a darker, dirtier part. The part Vanessa would never have been seen in, the part Fisk had more recently been calling home.

Jessica and Danny watched the silhouettes of Fisk, Matt, and others playing against the light on the top floor of a three storey walk up they had just entered. After several minutes, she knew no one working for Fisk was still out on the street, and so she signalled to Danny to follow her around the back of the building. Together they helped each other scale the side and make their way to the roof. From the ledge Jessica hoped she would be able to hear what was going on, but they were too far away and everything came to her in bits and pieces.

Fisk: "It's not enough."

Man: "We told you it might not work."

Fisk: "The resources you've supplied aren't-"

Danny scraped against the roof as he found his place next to Jessica, the sound of crumpling tar drowning out the little she could hear of the conversation below. Jessica's eyes narrowed on Danny's form, her disdain barely contained.

Jessica returned to her perch, straining to hear, but now there was only silence. She knew what that meant.

Rising from her position on the roof, she turned and came face-to-face with Matt Murdock, standing on the other side of the roof in his full Daredevil costume.

"Matt," Danny exclaimed as he scurried to his feet.

Matt stood motionless in response.

"Matt, it's me, Danny."

Jessica rolled her eyes. It didn't work that way. Matt knew who they were, but he didn't care - he couldn't care.

"I wish I could say it was a pleasure to see you again, Miss Jones, but sadly it's not," Fisk said as he slowly appeared behind Matt. He put his hand on Matt's shoulder and starred down both Jessica and Danny. "Everywhere I look, there you are."

"Yeah, that tends to happen when you attack someone's friends or kidnap their sister," Jessica spat back.

Fisk smirked. "I don't want to fight you, honestly. I've never wanted to fight you."

"No, you'll just have someone else do it for you," Jessica replied, nodding to Matt.

"If it makes you feel better, I won't have him fight you either," Fisk told her. "I know how close you've become."

Jessica felt the hair on the back of her neck stand tall. It was yet another statement that let her know that while she had been watching him, investigating him, he had been doing the same to her.

"Just give us Matt!" Danny yelled. "That's all we want."

Jessica sighed, and she knew Fisk caught her exasperation. Danny's bravado was ill informed and ill timed.

"Miss Jones, until next time," Fisk said, nodding his head to Jessica before turning back toward the door leading inside.

Matt also turned, ready to follow his leader. But Fisk shook his head no. It wasn't a cue to Matt, Jessica knew, since that wasn't the way Kilgrave's powers worked. Matt needed to hear the order before he would mindlessly stay behind. No, the shake of Fisk's head was directed at her. It was Fisk's way of letting her know she shouldn't have followed them - that there was punishment to come.

"Kill him," Fisk finally said. Matt turned to look back at Danny, his eyes narrowing. "Kill Danny Rand."

With that Fisk left the roof, the door slamming shut behind him, leaving Jessica, yet again, a step behind.

Fisk knew who Danny was. Sure, he could have known due to Danny's company or his involvement in trying to take down The Hand. But Jessica suspected he knew because she wasn't the only one Fisk was investigating. They were all being followed, they were all being silently hunted.

As Matt stepped toward Danny, he turned to Jessica. "Is this going to be bad?" he asked.

"Yeah," Jessica told him.

Danny inhaled deep, his eyes closed, preparing for battle. When they finally opened, Jessica could see the resolve etched across his face. In that moment, she almost respected him. Almost.


	25. Act Twenty-Five

Jessica Jones watched as Danny Rand's hand began to glow. The familiar yellow hue was slowly overtaking his clenched fist. She had seen the damage that supercharged punch could create and worried for Matt Murdock.

She knew they needed to knock Wilson Fisk out of his brain, but Jessica feared something else could shake loose. Sanity was tenuous for those trapped inside the prison Kilgrave's abilities created.

When Luke had found himself under Kilgrave's control he was able to struggle against it long enough to warn her of the danger she was in. Jessica considered Luke strong - very strong - but Matt had survived the collapse of a building, each story crashing down on top of him. He was strong, too. Plus, she knew few people who possessed his mental clarity.

She had hoped these combined strengths would save him from Fisk, but they hadn't. He was standing before her now ready for a fight, ready to kill a friend on the orders of a man he hated.

As Danny tried to centre himself, the light in his hand nearing full shine, Matt brandished his signature billy club, the black metal glinting in the setting sun.

Suddenly, he lunged forward. Danny's chi wasn't ready and he was forced to roll to the side and out of range of Matt's flying fist.

 _Fuck,_ Jessica thought. Everything was repeating. This fight had been played out once before. But this time she was on the other side, she was actively rooting against Matt, which is why she pressed forward and pushed Matt to the side. It was a hard shove, one that sent him barreling backward, and allowed her time to help Danny to his feet.

"What do we do?" Danny asked. He was breathing deeply, again trying to regain his composure.

Jessica shook her head. "I don't know."

She wanted to say, _Stall him._ But there was nothing to stall him for. Luke and Claire and Colleen weren't coming. And even if they had been, Jessica didn't have a plan.

Unfazed by Jessica's entrance into the fight, Matt flipped to his feet, his eyes still narrowed on Danny. He lunged again, this time Danny was ready for him.

Even without the aide of his glowing hand, Jessica could see that Danny was a capable fighter. It stood to reason they would be equally matched, having both been trained by weirdos from K'un-Lun. She hated knowing that about them, hated having kept bits and pieces of that mystical history in her head when there were more pressing things to be concerned by - but she couldn't help but stare at their form, fists, and fight. It was like dancing. Extremely aggressive dancing.

Just as Jessica allowed herself to feel admiration for Danny Rand, he took a roundhouse kick to the face and tumbled backward to her feet.

Without pausing, without allowing his opponent the chance to right himself, Matt stomped over to Danny, his billy club held high in the air. Jessica grabbed it, twisting hard, until the club rest in her hand. She quickly tossed it off the roof and watched as Matt's neck craned, a tell-tale sign that he was waiting to hear where it would land.

Jessica took that opportunity to punch him in the face. It wasn't the hardest hit she could muster, but Matt grunted loudly and stumbled back. Jessica kept on him, hitting again with the other hand. Back and forth, right then left, she punched him over and over until she has pushed him back to the edge of the roof. She could see blood trickling out from under his signature red mask.

"That's enough, Murdock," she told him. "You have to stop this."

Matt didn't listen. He brought his knee into her stomach causing her to lurch over. Then he took both hands hard against her back and pressed her to the ground. She was barely hurt, of course, but still vulnerable. He could have delivered another blow, brought his boot against her face, but he had a mission. He needed to kill Danny Rand. And so Matt simply stepped over Jessica and made a run at his real enemy.

Danny took the charge in stride, holding his opponent and grappling for control of the fight. Suddenly, it was on again and the two punched and kicked, matching each shot.

Jessica watched from her place on the ground. She hadn't yet picked herself up. Something was warring within her. The anger from having been taken out by Matt - even if momentarily. That anger made her want to chuck him off the roof like his billy club before him. But each time she heard Danny's foot connect with Matt, heard the groan he reluctantly let slip, she felt overwhelming concern.

The scientist had mocked her, said she wouldn't kill because she was a superhero. He had been wrong. But Matt Murdock was a hero. She could see it, feel it - and allowing him to kill Danny would ruin that, would ruin everything he had worked so hard to become.

As Jessica contemplated how she would take Matt out of the fight without truly hurting him, Danny's equilibrium returned. The glow of his hand shone against her face just as the sun dipped out of view. Danny's chi lit up the night.

He reeled back, ready to strike.

"Wait!" Jessica shouted.

It was unexpected and Danny hesitated, his fist hanging in the air, unsure of how to proceed. Jessica didn't know what else to say. She just knew she didn't want to see Matt on the receiving end of a supercharged punch.

The silent debate Jessica waged within herself gave Matt the opportunity he needed. With little warning, he brought his leg down against Danny's arm. The injury wasn't serious, but as Danny stumbled back, the light in his hand began to dim.

Jessica knew what was coming next and screamed, "Murdock, no!"

Matt thrust forward and grabbed Danny's hand and swiftly turned it to the left. Before anyone realized what was happening, the sound of Danny's breaking bones pierced the night sky.

Danny screamed as his wrist snapped, the yellow of his partially clenched fist finally blinking out. As Matt released him, Danny feel to his knees.

Anger finally won out and Jessica hurled herself at Matt, once again pushing him back, this time with all her might. He landed hard on the roof, the material beneath him creaking as he skid along it's rough surface to the edge.

But that didn't stop him. Jessica knew it wouldn't.

Matt struggled to his feet and set his sights back on Danny.

Jessica moved to the side, her body blocking the view of his wounded prey.

"You want him, you come through me," Jessica told him. She wondered if he registered that it was her, his friend, his sometime partner, his could have been… she shook her head. She couldn't focus on could have been.

Matt lunged toward her, then jumped in the air, his fist extended. He came crashing down against her face. She could instantly feel the skin tear and wondered if Matt smelled her blood.

She extended her leg and kicked him hard in the chest, then brought her own fist down - no jumps, just full, solid strength. Matt fell flat on the roof in a heap. As he lay before her, Jessica took her heavy boot to his stomach, hearing the air escape his lips in one loud, pained exhale. She didn't care. She did it again, forcing him to turn on his back. Then again, hitting him in the face. Then again. Then again. He was grunting beneath her, holding his sides, blood now completely colouring his mouth, his teeth stained a dark shade of red.

But the anger was so intense. _How could you let Fisk control you? You were supposed to be better than this,_ she thought. _Better than me._

Knowing the battle would continue unless she knocked him out, Jessica raised her foot once more, readying it to connect with his battered face again, this time straight on.

"Don't," Matt said.

The word was so soft she barely heard it. But she couldn't mistake the movement of his lips, lips she had barely seen part this entire time. He hadn't spoken to her since that night in the scientist's apartment. She relished the sound of his broken voice.

Jessica let her foot fall on the rooftop just beside his head, then reached down and grabbed Matt by the front of his red rubber suit. Lifting him up to her, their faces so close she could taste the iron in his blood as it lingered in the air, she asked, "What did you say?"

"Don't," Matt said again. This time there was no mistaking it.

Jessica released him. His body hit the roof hard. As she backed away, he lay there immobile.

"Let's go," Danny said.

As his words pierced her mind, Jessica realized that for a moment she had forgotten about Danny Rand and his broken wrist. For a moment it was just her and Matt.

Jessica nodded, then followed Danny back down the way they came.

 _Don't look back,_ she told herself. _Don't look back._

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You left him there!" Claire Temple bellowed. She had been repeating the same line between bouts of setting and bandaging Danny's wrist.

"Yes," Jessica snapped back yet again. "I left him there."

"I just- I just don't- I just don't understand," Claire stammered, the anger inside her rising well passed the surface.

Jessica pressed herself off the dresser she'd been leaning on. The wood slammed back against the wall as her weight gave way. "Fisk was there. He was directing Murdock to attack Danny. Maybe, just maybe, I could have gotten them both out. Or maybe Fisk would have used his power on Danny and then we would have two mind controlled assholes in costume roaming the city."

Jessica was lying. She had no reason to believe Wilson Fisk had stayed behind. But Danny didn't correct her. It was hard for them both to admit they fought Matt and won. It was hard to tell the team that leaving him there seemed better, simpler, easier than trying to help him.

"Are jumpsuits really costumes?" Luke Cage quipped from the door. He was leaning on the frame, watching the action unfold.

When Jessica had returned with Danny, Luke hadn't questioned them. He knew a man under Kilgrave's control struggles internally, constantly screaming inside. Jessica had to shoot him in the head to free him from his prison. He didn't want to know what she would have to do to Matt - a man who wasn't bulletproof. Leaving him behind seemed to be the only option. If only Claire agreed.

"Not cool, man," Danny replied, reminding Luke of his joke and forcing him to let out a light laugh, even in the midst of their troubles.

As the laughter faded, the four of them - Jessica, Claire, Danny, and Luke - stayed silent, living in the heavy regret of their actions. Colleen's sudden return to the safe house finally allowed them all to break free from guilt, for at least a moment.

"What happened?" Colleen cried upon seeing Danny's bandaged wrist and hand.

Jessica left them to their worries and made her way out of the room and toward the front door.

"Where are you going?" Luke called after her, but she didn't reply.

The door closed hard behind her.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jessica found herself on a park bench just a few blocks away, the night air whipping through her raven locks. She hadn't yet taken care of the cut on her face. It would heal itself, they always did. But now she reached up and tentatively touched it. Matt had given her that wound. He would have given her more if she hadn't stopped him.

 _Right?_

Something was wrong. She couldn't forget his word: _Don't_. Nor could she forget the look in his eyes. It was the look of a man not controlled by another. It was the look of Matt Murdock.

But could he have been acting this whole time? Would he have hit her so hard if he hadn't been under Fisk's control? Would he have broken Danny's wrist, stolen his power until it healed, if he hadn't been out of his mind?

Jessica didn't know the answer. She and Matt were close - Fisk even recognized it - yet she just couldn't be sure who was controlling him. But she knew how to find out.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After returning to the rooftop and finding it empty, Jessica began following Matt's blood trail. It wasn't the usual way she tailed a target, but Matt was unpredictable - he had to be - all the places they had once called home had been exposed, ransacked, compromised.

The blood line quickly became droplets before stopping altogether just two blocks from the roof. Jessica scanned the area, but there was no sign of Matt. She sighed. How stupid? Was she just expecting him to be waiting for her? If he was under Fisk's control he would have gone back to their home base. Or he would have pressed on and made his way to Harlem, to their new safe house, to complete his mission. He would have done a dozen other things - more intelligent things - than wait in the shadows for her to appear.

As she turned around, ready to leave, a hand pierced the light shining down from a lamppost above, and grabbed her around the shoulders. With a tug she found herself pulled into an alley, face-to-face with Matt Murdock.

He looked like shit. His mask was off, probably due to the amount of blood that had no doubt been pooling beneath it. He would taken it off to feel his wounds. He would have needed to breathe.

Jessica reached out to touch his face, but he sensed it and swatted her hand away. She recoiled, momentarily overcome with the sensation that he was indeed mind controlled, that this was all a trap.

Seemingly seeing the error of his ways, Matt grabbed her hand and brought it to the broken skin on his cheek. Feeling her soft fingers on the rough edges of his wounds, he sighed and allowed himself to fall into her arms.

Jessica held him, relief washing over her.

She told her memories of the time Luke had been controlled by Kilgrave to be quiet. She told those fears to leave. _The past is not repeating itself. It can't be. Not with him._

Now more than ever, she needed to believe Matt was Matt.


	26. Act Twenty-Six

**AUTHOR NOTE:** Hi everyone. Thanks for continuing to read. This chapter is leading to the beginning of a journey with Matt - I want to show what he is up to now. I know where this story is going. It does have an end, trust me. But your reviews keep it coming. So please, please let me know if you like it - or if there's something you want to see. THANKS!

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

Cold water ran down the side of Matt Murdock's face, the remnants of moisture squeezed out of Jessica Jones' tank top. She had removed her plaid button up and taken off the top that lay beneath. If Matt hadn't been so injured, his left eye nearly swollen shut, he might have tried to spy her sleek silhouette against the light cast through a cracked window.

After their encounter in the alley, Jessica had carried him into the nearest abandoned building. It appeared to have once been a laundromat, a few broken washing machines still lined the wall covered in dust. Jessica laid Matt on the only surviving table with ease, then left him to find water and drugs. Lots of drugs.

Even in the worst of New York's neighbourhoods one could always find a corner store. This one was open 24 hours, a scary thought given the clientele it must have served: pimps, prostitutes, thugs, and the occasional PI looking for a ton of Tylenol and more bandages than she could carry.

Now Matt lay at her mercy, the contents of her shopping trip strewn around him as she tended to his wounds. The water rushed into his open cuts forcing blood into his eyes. He winced, but Jessica ignored him. Like Claire before her, she knew what had to be done.

When a handful of Tylenol was pressed against his lips, Matt moved his head away. But again Jessica wasn't having it. She roughly grabbed the back of his neck and held him in place. He knew he needed to swallow them or she'd never let up.

Something about taking drugs bothered him, even the over-the-counter kind. His body had always been good at healing. He listened to what it needed and in most cases gave it what it wanted and it took care of itself. But Jessica's punch, her kick, was mightier than most. It would take more time than they had to heal him. The drugs would barely ease his pain.

Matt grunted hard as the handful of pills squirmed down his throat, chased by a gulp of water.

As Jessica put the finishing touches on the gash his forehead had received, she stared down into his one good eye wondering if he could see her. She hoped not - the worry was too prominent on her face. She didn't want anyone to see her so distressed.

"Stop moving," she told him as Matt began to sit up. Had this been Claire, he would have moved anyway knowing she couldn't stop him. But the ferocity in Jessica's voice told him to stay put. He would rather choose to lay back down than be pushed back down. Her strength was already etched on his body and face. He didn't want any more.

When the work was done, Jessica gave his face one last wipe using her soaked tank top and then moved to the other side of the room. With a loud scrape, she pulled over a chair, dust covered and torn, and sat it next to Matt's makeshift bed.

After what felt like an eternity she finally asked him the question he had known was coming, "Are you _you_?"

Matt couldn't help but smile. "You can't tell?"

"Don't," Jessica told him, her voice low and serious. "Don't use your cute fucking quips on me."

Matt opened his mouth to speak, but she wasn't done.

"I've seen this before. A man, charming and disarming and saying everything I want him to say. And then he turned out to be under someone else's control. Or he turned out to be the one doing the controlling. So tell me... is it you?"

Matt didn't want to argue the point that even if he told her he was of sane mind it didn't make it true. He could say anything and still be under Fisk's control. She would never really know. Only he knew. He was Matt Murdock. He was of sound mind. He was home. Hopefully, she believed him.

He nodded. "It's me."

In that instant, Jessica's eyes crested with a flurry of tears. She couldn't hold it back, couldn't save herself from the embarrassment of crying, of being so weak.

Matt could instantly taste the salt in the air and hear the exaggerated exhale that followed. He wanted to fight against his pain and hold her, but as fast as they came she'd wiped the tears away. It was as if it never happened. Vulnerable Jessica was a liability, one she couldn't afford.

"So you lied," she said. It wasn't a question, but Matt felt compelled to explain himself.

"I saw an opportunity and I took it."

"You were never under his control."

Again, it was just a statement. Again, Matt felt she was pressing him for more details.

"No, never."

"So when I went out that window, what happened?"

Matt sighed. "It took everything I had not to grab for you, not to fight. But after you hit the ground I could hear your heartbeat. I knew you were okay."

Jessica snorted. "Okay? We have vastly different definitions of the word okay."

"Jessica, please-"

She didn't let him finish. "I'm not mad, Murdock. It was a good plan. A smart plan."

"Then what's with the third degree?" he countered.

She rubbed her forehead forcefully, the frustration of the last few days without him bubbling to the surface. Should she tell him she missed him? Worried about him? Feared for him? No. None of that mattered now. The third degree was because she didn't understand.

"So what? He just didn't have his powers? Did the batteries die?" she quipped.

Matt shook his head. "No, I think he had them. I heard him being injected with something two different times. I could sense that others were just following him." Matt could hear the quickening of Jessica's pulse. He knew she was begin to doubt him. "I can't explain it, but I just know he wasn't the Wilson Fisk I remember."

Again, Jessica's hand found her forehead. "I don't get it. He has the ability of mind control and yet… you're immune?"

There was that word again: _immune._ The concept had swirled around the team since the beginning, back when only Jessica believed there was something to be immune from.

Matt began to prop himself up on his elbows, but Jessica quickly pressed him back down. He didn't like talking to her this way. He felt small, trapped almost, under the weight of her questions. He knew she deserved answers, but he couldn't give them. He didn't know if he was immune. He didn't know why he couldn't be controlled.

"I suppose I am," he told her sheepishly.

She didn't reply.

"I mean, it's not so crazy. You can withstand his control," Matt reminded her, but she didn't need reminding.

"I killed a woman," Jessica said flatly. "I killed a woman and it killed whatever power men like that have over me. But you… you're just stronger than everyone else? I don't buy that."

But she had bought it, hoped for it even, well before she'd encountered Matt on that roof ready for a fight. She told herself over and over that he was wise and calm and clear and true and that if anyone could withstand Wilson Fisk it was him. Yet, now that he was there in front of her, it was hard to believe. Could Matt Murdock really be _stronger_ than she was?

Matt didn't know what to say. Just moments earlier she had cried, seemingly overcome by the idea that he hadn't been mind controlled. Now she was testing him - saying it couldn't possibly be true. He didn't know how to make her believe it yet again.

Jessica abruptly stood up, the chair screeching loudly against the cracked tile floor. She had to pace. It was a habit she'd picked up from Trish, all those nights in her apartment watching her fret about her mother, her career, her sister's seemingly magical abilities. Jessica would give anything to be back in that apartment sarcastically joking about superhero costume ideas. Instead, she was standing over a real live superhero, his mask discarded at her feet.

She sighed.

 _You don't have time for this,_ Jessica thought. _You either believe him and stay or think he's controlled and go. You don't have time to play around._

"Okay," she finally said. "You're stronger than me."

Matt knew she wasn't really talking to him. It was as if she was confirming it to herself, as if the act of saying it aloud made it so.

"You're stronger than me," she said again, this time more assuredly.

Matt sighed. "It's not a question of strength."

"No, it is," she replied, the pace of her repeated steps slowing. "You're strong, stronger than I realized. It's your…" Jessica thought for a moment. "...your willpower."

"If that's true, then there's nothing in that, nothing biological that Fisk could exploit."

"Which explains why the scientist's experiments didn't work."

"They can't make an antidote to something that's in our heads," Matt said.

Jessica stood still, silent, thinking.

"What?" Matt asked her.

She let out a soft chuckle. "Luke's bulletproof and Kilgrave got to him. I'm… well, me, and it was the same. But you, a blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen, can somehow withstand it. Just seems strange, that's all."

"But you believe it now?" Matt questioned, realizing that now more than ever he wanted her to feel him again, to trust in him as she had before.

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I believe you," she told him, almost surprised at her own admission. If it had been anyone else - Luke, Danny, Claire, Colleen… hell, even Trish - would she have been so quick to believe? She didn't want to wonder why Matt had such a hold on her, she just wanted this whole ordeal to be done.

Finally, she added, "Even if I believe you, the others will take more convincing."

"You can't tell anyone," Matt quickly and sternly told her.

It dawned on them both that his mission had only just begun. She nodded in the affirmative. Jessica understood how important it was to have someone on the inside of Fisk's operation. She also knew how skeptical and paranoid those with power tend to become. There could be no hint of deception on Matt's part. If Fisk discovered him she knew his death would be painful and gruesome.

"I'll try to contact you. I'll try-"

"No, don't," Jessica told him. The risk was too high.

Matt knew she was right. He'd just allowed her to beat him into real submission to keep up the pretense of his fake mind control. He'd broken Danny's wrist knowing it was possible that while Fisk had left the scene there could be spies lingering in the darkness.

"Just go back and tell him…" Jessica stopped. _Shit._

She quickly removed her wet shirt from her face and looked down. The swelling was still clearly visible, his left eye almost completely fused closed. But the blood had been cleaned. The wound just above his right eyebrow has been closed and bandaged.

Jessica grabbed an edge of the white gauze and yanked at the tape holding it to his skin. Matt yelped, the surprise and pain mingling together.

"We shouldn't have done this," she said, but Matt could tell she was, yet again, talking more to herself. "We shouldn't have…"

"Hey," he began, reaching out for her hand. He wanted to quell whatever newfound worry had caused her brow to furrow. "Trust me, I appreciate it."

"Great. And do you think Fisk will like it, too?"

Matt closed his eyes as the realization of what they'd done hit him.

He'd been careful when he'd crawled off the roof and into the alley. He'd listened as long as possible and heard no footsteps, no errant breathing from one of those spies. He had assumed they'd seen the fight and believed Fisk's power was working.

Matt had allowed himself to be defeated - well, almost. He knew while lying under Jessica's boot that she would have bested him, even if he'd brought all his might down on her.

But he had always planned to lose. That loss would give him time to talk to her, to tell her he was just pretending. But that loss would have to end with Fisk finding him. Matt needed to get back to the roof.

"I have to go," he told Jessica as he began to lift himself up, his ribs straining under the movement.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait," she replied, her arm holding him down. "You can't go back like this."

Matt reached up and touched the gash on his forehead. While the wound was still open, it lacked the blood and puss it once had. Jessica had thoroughly cleaned it, same for his swollen eye. Picking at the cut, Matt tried to inflame it, but his fingers were too bruised from fighting to do the trick.

"Just reopen it," he finally told her.

"There won't be enough blood," she replied.

Jessica knew what she had to do. Without warning she brought her fist down against Matt's face. His body slammed back on the table making it shake. His groan echoed in the stark room, bouncing off bare walls and broken washing machines.

She watched as blood began to trickle from his forehead wound, but it wasn't enough.

"Close your eyes," she warned him, and Matt quickly did as he was told. He knew there was no arguing with her. He knew he would have to take a beating from Jessica Jones yet again.

She punched twice more in quick succession. They weren't hard hits - not hard by her standards - but they did the job. The cuts on his face opened wide, blood bubbling to the surface. The bright red she had seen on his lips just a few hours before was back, coating his swollen skin like the mask he couldn't properly wear.

"How do I look?" Matt croaked out, the blood in his mouth spitting forward on each word. He chuckled at his own bad joke and immediately regretted it. The movement made his face feel as if it were on fire.

"Come on," she said, grabbing him by the front of his costume and swinging him off the table. "We have to get you back to the roof."

As she held him in her arms, Jessica looked over his now battered face. She had never truly revelled in her abilities. The power of her punch wasn't always a blessing. Yes, she was able to help people in her neighbourhood, but she suspected her PI skills could do that job solo. When confronted with the magnitude of her strength - a groaning, bleeding Matt - she was reminded how hard she could be, her edges jagged and dangerous.

As she was contemplating the horror her strength could cause, Matt was silently thanking the skies for them. He didn't know what he would have done without Jessica Jones. He had always been so closed off, so distant from the people he loved. He had told himself that his secrets were what kept people safe, but Jessica lived freely, loudly, unapologetically and still kept her tiny clan intact. She was keeping him intact now, too.

While his bloodied face would scream the opposite to most, Matt knew that since he had returned from his supposed death, Jessica had been his real lifesaver. He wouldn't have been able to fend off Fisk, even with his heightened willpower. Not truly. He needed a partner. Or in her case, a leader. It was Jessica who first recognized something was wrong. It was Jessica that propelled their investigation forward. It was Jessica that made Matt want to crawl back into the lion's den. Perhaps he could finish what she started and bring an end to the mind control powers that had stolen so much from her.

Overcome with the sense that this parting was the beginning of a journey he had to succeed in, a journey he might not come home from, Matt leaned towards Jessica, his lips just inches from her own.

But just as quickly as he had moved close, he pulled away, tasting his own blood and deciding no one else should have a sample.

Jessica sighed. She knew this goodbye could be permanent - she had done permanent with him once before. That night beneath Midland Circle she and Luke had no idea what Matt was planning. Only Danny had heard Matt's plea to keep Hell's Kitchen safe and Jessica suspected he didn't initially think it was Matt's way of tossing in the towel. Had she known about Matt's decision she would have pummeled him into submission and dragged his unconscious body to the surface.

This time she did know - Matt was making another dangerous, potentially deadly choice. But all Jessica could do was slyly smile. The bruises slowly forming on Matt's face took on new meaning. She had pummeled him, pummeled him good. Yet, instead of dragging him away from the danger she was preparing to place him once again at the heart of it.

Jessica rested Matt on her left side and then swooped down and grabbed his mask. As she came back up, their faces so close, his breathing so laboured, she couldn't help but lean in and kiss him. Matt's earlier worry about his blood filled mouth had been correct, she could taste the heavy iron on her plush lips. But Jessica didn't care. She wasn't being sexy or romantic. She was saying goodbye to an old friend - maybe even a best friend.

Once she had pulled away she elected not to wipe the remnants off her lips. She didn't want Matt to sense it. Instead she wore the smear of blood like war paint, as she tucked herself under his arm and carried him from the old laundromat.

Matt didn't say a word. The pain and the pleasure was just too much.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Jessica watched from her hiding spot across the street, as the black van pulled up in front of the building. Six men exited, followed by Wilson Fisk. The men quickly made their entrance. They were searching for Matt, but came up short.

As they left the building, their heads hung low, Fisk bellowed, "Find him."

Jessica had planned to leave him on the roof, but the blood trial he had created earlier - the one that led from the roof to the alleyway she'd found him in - had long since dried. If Fisk spotted it he would know something was amiss. She had to leave Matt in the alley. Once he was there she went back to the laundromat and cleaned up the best she could. There could be no evidence remaining that she and Matt had been together. Fisk could never know.

On her way out, she noticed the blood droplets on the sidewalk, the ones leading to the laundromat. She tried in vain to buff them out of the concrete with her heavy boot. After a few minutes Jessica gave up. There were only a few - maybe he wouldn't notice.

 _Please, he can't notice._

Now, as she watched, the men scurried from the building and began a sweep of the area. Jessica was confident they would find Matt and so she turned away. She needed to get back to the safe house. But first she had to come up with a lie for where she had been.

 _Just say you were drinking,_ she thought. A smile crossed his lips. Of course, because everyone would believe that.

Jessica walked the back streets, moving swiftly away from Fisk - and Matt. With each step she wondered how he would survive. She knew she could never bear it, could never pretend to do the bidding of a madman. Her trick against Kilgrave had only lasted a few minutes. She couldn't have kept up that charade… unless it was to save Trish. She would do anything for Trish.

It dawned on her, as the now early morning air bite at her face, that maybe Matt was doing the same. Maybe he thought of her, of the team, as she thought of Trish. Maybe they were family. And what wouldn't Matt Murdock do for family?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I found him," one of the men called.

Fisk pushed his way through the small grouping of manipulated thugs. There on the other side lay Matt Murdock. His face was swollen and bloodied, his devil mask clenched in his hand.

"Get him into the van," Fisk commanded. "Hurry!"

They scrambled to comply and Matt was whisked away, each man grabbing a limb and tugging toward the curb.

Fisk looked toward the rooftop, just a few blocks away, and then down to the alley that spread out before him. He wondered where Matt had been going. He wondered how far he would have crawled if only he hadn't been so defeated, so broken.

As he turned to follow his men back to the van, Fisk looked down and caught sight of a blood drop. It was to the left of the others, leading away from the alley and away from the building. There next to it was another and another. They were small. Very small. Had he not been standing under a streetlight he wouldn't have seen them. But they seemed out of place. They pointed in the wrong direction.

Perhaps Matt had turned around, gone back to the alley when he knew he couldn't walk any further. Or perhaps…

Suddenly, the sky opened above him and let out a flurry of warm rain. Fisk turned his eyes to the ground, now soaked. He shook his head and hurried back to the van as an early morning thunderclap howled above him.


	27. Act Twenty-Seven

NOTES:  
1\. I'm sorry I have been MIA for so long. I got a promotion, which led to more work. Now that things have calmed down I am back and ready to complete this thing!  
2\. Thank you for everyone still reading/following. But if you abandoned this story, I don't blame you.  
3\. As always, reviews are amazing! Thanks again!

RECAP: I have gone back in time a bit here to show Matt's POV on things that happened after Jessica was pushed from the window of the scientist's apartment. Basically, this happens before the fight between Matt, Danny and Jessica and before Jessica and Matt shared a few moments in the abandoned building. I wanted to show Matt's first few days with Wilson Fisk and lead his POV to the present state of the story.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

That first night pretending to be under Wilson Fisk's control, Matt had wanted to sneak out of the luxury condo Fisk and Vanessa called home. He wanted to chase across the city to Jessica Jones. He wanted - needed - to know that she was alright. But he knew it was too risky.

Her fall from the scientist's apartment window had been sudden and hard. The sound of her soft flesh colliding with the concrete, the echoing slap followed by the crunch of bone, replayed in his head. He tried to shake it away, but his body was rigid and still as he sat next to one of Fisk's bodyguards on their way back to his new home.

The SUV finally parked in an underground lot. Matt instinctively followed a group of controlled thugs as they each poured out of their vehicles and into the elevator. Then up they went until they hit the top floor.

Wilson Fisk stepped out first, the incredible view from his opulent condo coming into range. Matt followed his new master as he walked further into the space, but no one else did. Matt suddenly realized they were waiting for orders. He froze in place, hoping his indiscretion would not be noticed.

"Everyone but the lawyer leaves," Fisk said, without turning back. Matt could hear the elevator doors slide closed behind him.

"Follow me."

Matt had no choice but to walk behind, trailing the footsteps of the man he hated, up to the second story of the condo. They stopped halfway down the narrow hall and Fisk opened a large door to reveal an even larger room. It was nearly empty, save for a bed covered in clinical looking white sheets and a single down pillow.

Matt stepped inside.

"You sleep now," Fisk told him from the doorway. "Tomorrow we get started."

Matt wanted to ask, _started on what? -_ but he held his tongue.

Instead that night he laid in bed, his body stiff above the covers. He listened to every movement within the condo and let the whistle of the wind against the wall of windows to his right keep him awake.

He thought of Jessica, of their strange team. He wondered if they were together. He hoped they were nursing Jessica back to fighting form - even though he knew she probably didn't need help, that she would protest their aid at every turn. But he hated thinking she was alone somewhere, hurt and worried about him.

Just a few nights before he would have questioned those feelings, but now he understood that their relationship was finally _there._ Lying in Fisk's guest bed, the rhythmic sounds of Vanessa's breathing creating a lullaby in his perked ear, Matt knew somewhere Jessica was thinking of him just as he was thinking of her. There was no longer any confusion. No longer any guilt. They were partners.

The sun burst over the city far too soon for his liking. When Fisk returned to the room Matt failed to pretend he had been sleeping, and for a moment he wondered if his cover had been blown. But Fisk didn't seem to notice. It was another clue that whatever ability he possessed was a recent acquisition.

When he told Matt to get up and shower, Matt readily complied and any doubt that might have existed slowly faded away.

His first day would be one of second guesses and staggered starts. Matt needed to find his rhythm in a new world of make believe. To do so, he decided to follow whatever order was given without question, but his curiosity was difficult to tamp down. His defiance even harder still. Matt's jaw repeatedly clenched, his skin crawling as Fisk's voice boomed about him. But, again, Fisk seemed oblivious. In fact, Fisk seemed to have something much bigger on his mind.

Yet, he kept his new toy close. When Matt emerged from the bathroom after that shower, Fisk was waiting in his bedroom, sitting rigidly in a chair that seemed too small for his for formidable frame.

"I have a job for you," Fisk told him, as beads of water dripped from Matt's hair onto the hardwood floor. Suddenly, Matt was thankful he'd changed into a suit before exiting the bathroom.

The suit had been provided for him, already hanging in the closet when he arrived. It fit perfectly. It unnerved him.

"Can you handle that?" Fisk continued.

Matt realized he was expected to answer, but no task had been given. This part of the duplicity scared him - how much to question his new master.

But instead of asking what the job was, Matt simply replied. "Yes, I can handle it."

By 11AM, they had buckled themselves into the back of yet another hulking SUV for a drive across Manhattan. A bodyguard sat in the front seat next to the driver, and another beside Matt. They were facing Fisk as he stared out the window looking over New York during their excruciatingly slow journey through the neighbourhood. Matt had never hated city traffic more and was silently thankful that his "blindness" kept him from getting a driver's licence. He couldn't imagine routinely contending with it when there were buildings to be leapt from or alleys to sneak through.

When they arrived outside the offices of Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz Matt's heart sank. He instantly understood the job. He instantly knew Foggy Nelson was the intended target.

"Go inside, find Mr. Nelson, and bring him to me," Fisk said. His voice was flat, and Matt couldn't tell if the levels were to benefit his mind control abilities or because the orders given meant nothing to him. He didn't need Foggy. He didn't care about Foggy. He just wanted to see if Matt would do it. And after step one was complete, Matt knew those orders would only get worse.

Thankfully, Matt also knew Foggy was still out of town and had been for several days. He and Trish had fled the chaos and danger of New York City at Jessica's behest.

But it seemed Fisk didn't know that. It was a gap in his intelligence gathering. Yet another thing Matt was keeping a mental tab of in the hopes that he could tell Jessica - sooner rather than later. Matt knew a private investigator was only as good as the clues she gained.

All Matt had to do was slip inside the building and hide. He couldn't let people see him. Matt Murdock was supposed to be dead. While he had never worked for Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz, he had routinely come across their stable of high-priced lawyers. They were the ones breezing into the courthouse halls in $500 suits, their clients driving away after acquittal in their BMWs.

Matt wondered, if no one saw him, could he simply tell Fisk that Foggy was gone? That he couldn't find him. That the job couldn't be completed as planned. Technically, it wouldn't even be a lie.

So, without further prompting, Matt quickly slid from the backseat and ran into the alley next to the building. He hadn't asked how Fisk wanted him to enter, but the cloak and dagger dramatics didn't seem to bother him.

Perhaps it was because he too knew Matt Murdock was supposed to be a dead man. If anyone saw him, that would bring undue attention to whatever plan he was cooking inside that giant skull.

Or perhaps it was because Fisk suspected Matt was in fact the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

Matt couldn't be sure, but Fisk wasn't a stupid man. Stupid men might be taken down by lawyers who still used fax machines and held important negotiations over fold out poker tables. Stupid men might be seduced by the innocence of a blind man, thinking he couldn't be a threat. Matt knew Fisk had been incensed that the shabby firm of Nelson & Murdock played a hand in his downfall, so it stood to reason that Fisk would suspect Matt was more than what he appeared. Only a vigilante could take down the mighty Wilson Fisk. Only a man with dark secrets of his own could understand the weaknesses of another.

But it didn't matter. Fisk hadn't revealed to him a desire to see the Devil of Hell's Kitchen back out on the streets - or even Matt Murdock - so sneaking about like a criminal suited them both just fine.

 _I am a criminal_ , Matt thought. _Or I'm about to be_.

Within seconds he had found his way to the rear security wall. Matt went up and over, and then ran into the underground parking lot entrance, using a tuck and roll maneuver to stay out of sight of a departing van.

He jogged up the ramp and into the warm orange glow of the overhead lights. Then he thrust down beside a parked car and waited, his ears perking as the large metal door, held open by the last vehicle, whined closed.

"Are you sure?" a female voice asked from the other side of the underground lot. She was moving closer to his hiding spot.

"You won't get paid until the information is in my hands."

Her heels clacked against the concrete as she took long strides across the garage.

"I think you know what this firm is capable of, what I'm capable of, and if I don't have a location for Jessica Jones by the end of the day the consequences will be on you. Am I making myself clear?"

Jeri Hogarth. Matt had only briefly encountered her once before, a random bump in the courthouse hallway. But he knew she was the lawyer who had once retained Jessica as an investigator. He knew she was Foggy's new boss. And he knew from the steady beat of her heart that when she said, _the consequences will be on you,_ she meant it. She meant something ominous, an act she would have no hesitation putting in motion.

"It's not that difficult. Did you check the bars?"

Matt could hear the man on the other end of the line ask, "Which one?"

"All of them," Jeri replied. "For Christ's sake, one of them has a glowing hand. These people cannot be that hard to track down. You have 12 hours to get it done."

Frustrated, she sighed, cupping the phone in her hand. Turning on her heels she returned to the elevator, the repeated press of the button echoing off the concrete.

Matt listened as she entered, the elevator doors closing with a light thud. When the click of the hands on her watch could no longer be heard, he strode out from his hiding spot.

His head was swimming. Since he'd been back the city was a question he had no answer for. Where once he had known it's every darkened alley, every whispered secret, he was now hovering just above the noise completely blind. The irony wasn't lost on him, and in the lonely parking garage he smiled to himself. The mystery never felt over. Nothing seemed solved.

As he wondered why Jeri Hogarth would be searching for Jessica and the rest of their ramshackle team, the metallic creak of the elevator coming back down forced him back behind yet another car.

Two men exited. They were carrying themselves differently than Jeri had, or any business professional. Their steps were hard, their bodies thick, yet Matt could tell they were trying to be stealthy. They were searching for him.

He must have tripped an alarm or been picked up on camera. Rookie mistake, of course, but he didn't feel himself and maybe that was for the best.

Fisk had said nothing about how he would enter the law offices or bring Foggy out. Maybe he was expecting a scene. Maybe a scene would help solidify the illusion.

Matt knew he would have to fight these men, he would have to hurt them in order to sell the story. He winced knowing they were probably just hired security personnel with wives and kids. Wives and kids who would visit them in the hospital later that night.

The men parted, each taking a side of the garage, moving up between the cars with their guns drawn.

When the first came into reach, Matt leapt forward, his foot connecting with the man's knee. As the man growled in pain, Matt quickly disarmed him, grabbing the black metal weapon and flipping backward over the man. It twisted his hands over his own head. Instinctively, the man continued holding his weapon until both he and Matt heard his shoulder pop loose. The strain was too much. Matt landed hard just behind him, and now fully in control of the gun he tossed it underneath a nearby car.

"Hey!"

Matt turned in time as the second man raised his own gun and fired. The sound bounced off every flat surface and reverberated in Matt's head. He darted behind another vehicle and quickly covered his face, shielding it from the raining glass of a now broken passenger window. As the man continued to fire, Matt counted the shots.

He'd never been particular good at knowing how many bullets each type of gun carried, nor was he good at keeping track of their discharge. But he was trying to teach himself in order to have one more tool in his arsenal.

Thankfully, he could easily detect the click of an empty gun as the trigger was pulled again and again. Matt took that time to grab a handful of thick glass and toss it over the rear end of the car. The second man moved to protect his face, and Matt ran full force into him. The crunch of a broken rib straining under his elbow made Matt's stomach turn.

Yes, they had shot at him. But hadn't he provoked the confrontation by sneaking through their garage, by ducking down behind luxury cars like a thief?

As the second man stumbled back, Matt jumped up and brought his fist down against his face. The man fell unconscious to the concrete.

Without warning, Matt turned and grabbed the neck of the first man, the one moaning in pain over his throbbing shoulder and knee. Matt brought the man's face against the metal of the nearest car door once, twice, three times until he slumped down to the ground next to his colleague.

Quickly scanning the garage, Matt saw no camera, nor did he hear the mechanics of one whirring from side to side. He figured the area was free of recording equipment if people like Jeri Hogarth felt comfortable enough to conduct off the books business there.

He must have set off an alarm when he passed through the garage door. Perhaps a weight sensor. For a second he felt safe - if there were no cameras there would be no footage of an alive Matt Murdock.

He waited, listening to the methodical pace of each man's heartbeat. He knew they would live, of course. But he needed something to distract him. Five minutes more and he could exit the way he'd come in and tell Fisk he'd found nothing. Five minutes more seemed like a reasonable amount of time

When he'd returned to the SUV, Matt played up the encounter, panting harder than such a fight would have really warranted.

"Where's Mr. Nelson?" Fisk asked.

"Not there," Matt told him, staring straight ahead as Fisk ordered the SUV into mid-day traffic. He began rubbing his fist, mimicking an injury.

"What happened?"

"I was attacked by two men." Matt kept his tone flat.

"Did you kill them?"

"No."

Matt worried he had failed the test, but Fisk gave no hint that he cared.

"Home," Fisk said to the driver, and the man behind the wheel obeyed.

Matt slumped down. He was exhausted, not physically, but mentally. His journey to retrieve Foggy for their mutual enemy had been a futile exercise. Perhaps it had proven something to Wilson Fisk, but from Matt's perspective it only hurt two innocent men. And it exposed Matt Murdock to a city who thought he was gone.

Yes, recorded footage was unlikely, but if Jeri Hogarth was looking for the remainder of his team, if she had hired Foggy, hell, if she had ever read a damn newspaper she would know about Matt Murdock and his untimely demise.

There was no doubt those men would tell her what they'd seen: a man in a business suit and dark red sunglasses, a man who could fight, a man who never said a word. If she had been looking for Jessica, Luke and Danny before, he knew he'd only inflamed her desire.

Matt wanted to curse, shake his head, exhale loudly, anything to purge his frustration. Instead, he stayed rigid at the side of his captor, a blank slab of clay ready to be molded.


	28. Act Twenty-Eight

The next morning Matt lived through a repeat of the day before. He awoke from a restless night's sleep and prepared himself for another helping of commands and curiosity.

After a quick and cold shower, trying to shock his body, to prepare it for anything, Matt slipped on another suit. Again it was waiting for him, the closet giving him all he needed for the day ahead.

Matt sat on the edge of the bed and awaited his next task. 15 minutes later Fisk entered and ordered him back into the SUV.

It wasn't until they were pulling out of the underground parking lot that Fisk directed his driver to the offices of the New York Bulletin.

Matt stiffened.

Karen Page. His Karen.

If Fisk was testing him, trying to see how far this version of Matt Murdock could be pushed without resistance, it was finally working.

He had known Foggy was safely out of harm's way the day before. But he had no such assurances when it came to Karen.

He immediately imagined her at her ramshackle desk, papers scattered about, pictures tapped to the wall, her hair loose and sleek down her back. He could see the pencil drop from her mouth as she turned and found him in the doorway. He could feel her press against him in the tightest of hugs - a hug of joy and relief. A hug that would come before the questions began or before he was forced to do or say something to her he'd always regret.

Thankfully, that was all in his head, the overactive imagination of a man who had seen too much.

Just as he began formulating a plan, a way to stall Fisk or even a way to explain everything to Karen, the buzz of a cell phone cut through his thoughts.

Fisk fished the device from the inside pocket of his blazer and began reading a lengthy text.

When Fisk grimaced, Matt wondered if it had been sent by someone who knew his abilities, someone who didn't want to risk speaking to Fisk on the phone fearing they'd become his next mind control victim.

Matt didn't know if that was how it worked, but he could understand the need for caution.

"Turn around," Fisk bellowed to his driver, and without care the driver pulled a hard U-turn and suddenly they were shifted to one side, Fisk practically sitting in Matt's lap. "Careful!" Fisk shouted. "Take us back to the condo."

Matt held in a large sigh of relief, letting it bubble in his chest. Karen was safe… for now.

But by the time they pulled in front of the building and stepped out of the SUV, Matt knew trouble had found them again. As Fisk spoke with a group of henchmen, a group that had been waiting for them dressed all in black and sweating under the hot midday sun, Matt heard the unmistakable heartbeat of Danny Rand.

He was standing across the street. He was spying. And he was doing it badly.

Matt knew there was no way Danny could have found Fisk's new home on his own. He knew the Iron Fist would have needed the help of a private investigator.

When Fisk beckoned for Matt to follow him down the city street, he almost missed the command. He was too wrapped up in thoughts of Jessica.

Before Fisk barked again, Matt turned at attention. He could see in Fisk's eyes a glimmer of distrust - the first since Matt began his charade.

They stared at one another for what felt like an eternity. Matt wondered if anyone could tell that he was holding his breath. Finally, Fisk turned and began walking… and Matt followed, as did a handful of thugs.

Together the unusual posse strode down the street, weaving between pedestrians.

 _Where are we going?_ Matt thought. _And why are we walking?_

As they continued their journey, Matt tuned into Danny's distinctive, rhythmic heartbeats as he followed behind, no more than a block's distance away. Suddenly the sound was joined by harder, faster, more deliberate pounding - the distinctive throbs of Jessica Jones on a mission.

 _She's here._

As a smile crossed his lips, Matt stopped himself. Not because he feared Fisk would see - his new boss was striding a few feet ahead of him, his back firmly obstructing any view Matt might wish to have.

No, Matt stopped smiling because he knew suddenly why they were walking. Whatever information Fisk had received from that text, wherever they were headed, it all coincided with Danny having been made. Which meant Jessica had been made. Which meant Fisk was leading them into a trap.

When they finally arrived at their destination, a grimy three storey walk-up surrounded by grass and weeds almost waist high, Matt stepped inside the front door just behind Fisk, nearly crashing into him as he greeted a pair of thugs already waiting just beyond the threshold. Matt recognized the heavy cologne of the man on the right as the brand that was wafting through his loft the night Fisk first put his battle plan into action.

"Did you bring it?" Fisk asked the man.

"Yes," the man replied.

It was then that Matt looked down and noticed the man was carrying a large, black duffel bag. As the bag passed from servant to master, Matt could hear the low crinkle of fabric folding against rubber inside. He knew instantly it was his suit, a suit that should have been residing in a trunk inside Colleen's dojo.

A flurry of thoughts overcame him all at once: When did Fisk's men find the dojo? Was Colleen alright? And when did Fisk discover he was the Devil of Hell's Kitchen?

Matt formulated a series of answers as he followed Fisk further into the home, giving away no emotion that he knew what the bag contained.

Firstly, he knew Colleen was alright. He could still hear Danny's heartbeat, penetrating downward from his new position on the roof. While it was faster than usual, Matt believed that was due to the adrenaline his friend would be feeling, adrenaline caused by his spy pursuits rather than the injury or death of Colleen. Matt knew what the heartbeat of a broken man sounded like and he could smell the sweat of a rage filled man from more than a block away. Danny, thankfully, didn't fit either bill.

The answers to his others questions couldn't be definitively ascertained. Fisk's men could have found the dojo during routine surveillance, gone inside and happened upon the suit. Or they could have been instructed there, just as they were instructed to his own loft. They could have been ordered to find the suit, proving what Matt had earlier suspected about Fisk's level of intelligence and his knowledge of his own takedown at the hands of Nelson & Murdock… and the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

Matt couldn't help but be frightened by the latter option, since it meant whatever plan Fisk had in store for him was more about the Devil than it was about Matt Murdock.

The voice of an unknown man, a man talking to Fisk in the next room, snapped him from his hypotheticals.

"It's not enough," Fisk told the man.

"We told you it might not work," the man replied, his breathing laboured, fear creeping into his voice.

"The resources you've supplied aren't nearly adequate enough," Fisk bellowed. "I need you to solve this problem, not create new ones."

As Fisk was speaking, Matt heard the unmistakable sound of shoes scraping against the tar roof above them. It was so loud, he knew Fisk had heard it as well.

Fisk leaned toward the man until his own mouth fell directly in line with the man's ear. He whispered, "Make more or my associate here will be forced to kill you."

Matt swallowed hard, perhaps too hard, because Fisk whirled around to face him. Suddenly, the black duffel bag flung from his hand, slamming against Matt's chest. It was time for the trap against his team to unfold.

"Put it on," Fisk ordered. "We have a meeting on the roof."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

 **24 Hours Later**

The touch of Jessica Jones' lips lingered long after she'd stepped away, long after she'd deposited him back in that alley, and long after Fisk's men had roughly dumped him on his bed inside the condo. There he lay for almost a full day blinking in and out of consciousness. As he slept he replayed the feel of her skin on his own; not just the kiss, but every hug, every touch of her hand, the time he held her nearly naked body in the shower. It looped again and again, his mind stuck on this one station.

Awake, he thought about what he could have said or done but didn't. He should have told her about Vanessa's presence in the condo. He should have explained that if Foggy was a target, Trish could be too - it was imperative that they continued to keep their distance. He should have said Jeri Hogarth was looking for her for reasons unknown. He should have wrapped his bruised hand in her hair and pulled her close again and again.

Matt groaned under the weight of those thoughts and the weight of his feelings.

 _Now's not the time,_ he told himself. _It may never be the time._

He had been used to bad timing: Claire, Karen. He had let his feelings for them both subside. Sometimes he thought maybe those feelings had never been real.

Claire was his caretaker, his careful cheerleader. Each time she'd bandaged him up he couldn't help but feel something for her. She was beautiful, whip smart, funny, and most importantly she was keeping the Devil of Hell's Kitchen alive, literally. With her he was free to be aggressive and violent and indulge in the actions and thoughts he feared to show his friends.

Karen was his advocate, seeing the best in him. She viewed him through rose coloured glasses, and for a time he could do no wrong. She was beautiful, determined, passionate, and most importantly she was keeping Matt Murdock alive, because with her he was forced to be a version of himself that wasn't plagued by thoughts of vigilante justice. Maybe a better version.

 _Maybe._

Jessica was his… no, he didn't know what Jessica was.

Maybe that was what made this all so hard, so confusing. Feelings, Matt had discovered, were the biggest asset in helping the helpless - and the greatest enemy of clear headed, rational planning. And he needed his head if he was to survive yet another night under Fisk's roof, and seemingly under his control.

Sighing, resigning himself to the knowledge that whatever he felt for Jessica Jones it would need to be tucked away, locked up until this was all over, Matt reached up and felt the gash on his forehead. It was healing nicely. Most wouldn't notice the small, white scar it would leave behind. But Matt would know. It was almost a badge of honour - the remnants of a fight with Jessica Jones

"They were dosing me," Wilson Fisk growled from downstairs.

The condo was split level, much too fancy for Matt's liking. Everything was glass and marble. Everything was white. Perhaps it was because they'd only been there a short time, but the place seemed sterile, not the home of a man who loved art and music and food.

But the lack of extra flourishes - no extraneous light sources creating overt din, no record player softly scratching out classical music in the background - meant that everything spoken inside the condo filtered into Matt's ear with crisp clarity.

He could hear Fisk pacing, and slowly rolled from his position on the bed and moved closer to the door.

"What?" Vanessa asked. Matt could tell she was confused. He could also hear the slight jangle of her bracelets as she wrung her hands over one another again and again.

"Dosing me!" Fisk screamed in response.

Matt's ears perked again. The shout startled him. Not enough to rouse suspicion that he was awake. No one would think that he could hear them one floor up and down a hallway. But still, the frustration and desperation in Fisk's voice was alarming.

Fisk continued to storm about the room, a heavy methodical pace that he was sure Vanessa could only watch. Matt knew she was afraid to interrupt him, afraid to ask another question. He assumed this dynamic was unusual. From his own brief encounters with Vanessa he knew her to be more than capable of handling herself around Wilson Fisk. In fact, he suspected that at times she was the only one capable of actually handling him.

Yet, there they were, lovers, partners, sharing an uneasy silence that threatened never to end.

Finally - mercifully for Matt who felt as if he'd been holding his breath - Fisk said, "I'm sorry."

He came to rest next to Vanessa on the couch, it's springs singing a slight tune, and took her hand in his own. The jangling stopped.

"Just explain it to me," she told him tentatively. "Whatever it is, we can handle it together."

Matt could hear her pulse steady. She was being sincere. She had no plans to leave Fisk behind. Matt knew that whatever was next, whatever plan was in motion, Vanessa would be just as culpable as Fisk was.

Fisk sighed. "About two months ago they told me my lawyer was in the visitors' room, but it wasn't my lawyer. It was a man I'd never met before. He knew things about me, about my past."

"What things?" Vanessa asked. Matt held his breath again as Vanessa's heart skipped a beat. The question was risky, but Fisk was too tired to hold back from her any longer.

"Things about my mother," he said before pausing. The silence stretched across the condo like canvas. "About my father."

The jangle returned to Matt's ears and he imagined Vanessa stroking Fisk's hulking face reassuringly.

"He told me they could get me out of prison if I did what they said."

Vanessa didn't ask what that was, but both she and Matt knew the answers were slowly but surely rolling out.

"At first it was just a sample. They told me it wouldn't last long. But suddenly the men around me, the men in the yard, we're listening to everything I said," he told her. "I'm a powerful man, Vanessa. People usually listen when I speak. But this was something else. Almost involuntary. Three weeks later, I was able to walk out the front doors. The guards held them open for me."

Fisk sighed. The sound crawled its way up the stairs and practically knocked Matt backward with it's force. Matt understood this was new for Fisk, this level of honestly and exposure. And it didn't sit well with either of them.

"They've told me I can continue like this if I do what they say," he finally relented. Matt could hear the distress in his voice. Wilson Fisk did not like being subservient to anyone. Prison must have been a kind of torture, despite his undeniable special treatment, which included catered meals and prolonged yard time. These people, whoever they were, had rattled Fisk. And yet Matt knew the gift they'd given him was something he would never return.

"Continue like what?" Vanessa asked, her voice cutting though Matt's thoughts.

"Free," Fisk whispered. Matt heard him clearly, even from one flight up and on the other side of a wooden door. But Vanessa had trouble.

"Pardon?" she said, her sometime French accent creeping to the forefront.

"Free!" Fisk screamed, his patience with her inquisition running thin. "If I do what they say then I stay out of prison, we stay in this condo, we have our run of the city! I get to be free, Vanessa."

Matt thought for a moment that Vanessa would leave. He heard her rise from the sofa, a soft swoosh in her step. But Matt didn't truly know her. And sometimes neither did Fisk.

"Are you doing what they want now?" she asked.

"What?" Fisk snarled. Matt could hear his heartbeat, an erratic clash of echoes that seemed much too fast.

"Are you doing what they want now?" she asked again. Matt knew she could hear Fisk's heartbeat as well - how could she not? But her voice remained calm, soothing even.

Fisk cleared his throat. "Yes," he told her, his voice cracking in shame.

"Is this why I've been delivering packages all over the city?"

Fisk didn't reply.

"And what of the man upstairs? Is that what they want?"

"That's personal," he told her.

"What is?" she asked, her voice still level despite how confusing she must have thought this all was. "What's personal? The packages or the man?"

"Both."

Matt imagined Vanessa shaking her head. He caught what she had - the lie.

"So explain to me how you're doing what they want. Because it seems to me you're doing what you always do. You're in control."

Fisk snarled as he lifted himself from the couch, the springs easing back to their resting position.

"Have you been listening to me?" he asked angrily, but Matt could tell he was holding back. The rage that simmered just below the surface was slowly pouring free, but Fisk was being careful. His anger could force people to flee. It could kill. Matt knew Fisk didn't want that with Vanessa. He wondered if she knew that too, if that was why she felt free to push back.

"I'm listening… and all I hear is that someone gave you a gift. Now that you have it, you get to choose how to use it."

"A gift?" Fisk's speech dipped. Matt could tell he didn't like referring to his new power that way. "This control I have is temporary. They come to me and give me more doses."

"But you've figured out a way to dose yourself," Vanessa said. Fisk didn't reply, but his crazed heartbeat almost instantly slowed, as if Vanessa's insight, her ability to read him, to know him, had soothed his anxiety.

"The packages," she continued. "Each person is part of a network, each person is working on one piece of the puzzle never the knowing the whole. Because if they knew they could reveal your pursuits to the men who believe themselves to be in control."

"Or take it for themselves," Fisk added.

"So, you're allowing yourself to be dosed at specific intervals, making sure you keep up that rouse," she said. "But you're working on a way to make sure you never have to rely on them again."

"Clever and beautiful," Fisk softly said.

Matt could practically hear Vanessa smile.

"I am so much more than that. I'm your partner. I can deliver all the packages you want and not know what's inside them. I can have pieces of the plan, but not the whole. Or I can really help you. Your choice."

 _Damn, she's good_ , Matt thought.

"There's a catch," Fisk said, again a whisper, but Matt knew Vanessa had heard him. "If this becomes permanent, whatever I say to you…"

Fisk stopped. Matt almost felt sorry for the man who had caused him so much harm. Fisk loved Vanessa. What it must be like to love someone, yet never know if they loved you back or if they were simply compelled to love. That's what would happen. Fisk would no longer know if there truly was one person who believed in him, trusted him, needed him. Vanessa would be no more capable of free will than his nameless chorus of thugs.

"It's controlled through speech?" she asked suddenly, and Matt realized that she still didn't understand the gift they both spoke of.

Fisk didn't reply, but Matt imagined him shaking his head, a slow, methodical yes.

"But there's a woman who's immune," Fisk told her.

Silence overtook the condo. It stretched so long Matt grew concerned. He could still hear the pulses of the pair below, but nothing else.

"Then we find her and we take it," Vanessa suddenly said.

"I've tried."

The jangle returned as Vanessa enveloped Fisk in a warm hug. "But now I know. Now we can try harder. Together."


	29. Act Twenty-Nine

The verdict was out on whether or not it was a good idea to tell the team about Matt's double play inside Wilson Fisk's ranks. The more people who knew the more likely it was that the secret would leak out, and with it any chance of Matt's survival.

But Jessica Jones knew that holding onto the information could potentially lead to a rift in their faction once the truth was revealed. Everyone wants to be in the know, especially her. A secret of this magnitude kept from her would definitely stir resentments, but since she was the one doing the secret keeping it didn't seem so bad.

She wouldn't tell them about finding Matt, tending to him and his broken face. She wouldn't tell them about his - and now her - plan to infiltrate Fisk's operation and bring it down from the inside.

Potential resentment from the others would have to remain at the bottom of her list of worries.

What if Fisk ordered Matt to attack again? Both he and Danny had been pulling their punches. Matt, because he wasn't really being controlled. Danny, because he wasn't quite sure what was going on. The next time Danny wouldn't be confused. He would know to fight and to win.

That stupid glowing fist could be the end of Matt Murdock.

Jessica sighed. She felt as if that was all she did lately, frustration seething just under the surface of her smooth skin.

But as she rolled over, her own bed creaking as her hips dug into the old mattress, she took small comfort in being home.

With Fisk focused on Matt, she knew her apartment was safe again. Whatever his thugs had been looking for there they must have found. She still didn't know what it had been, but she'd used up all her energy for the day, she couldn't think anymore. So she pressed her eyes shut against the sun piercing her window and desperately begged for sleep.

"Jessica?" Malcolm called from the other side of her front door.

She could have said nothing, or perhaps yelled at him to fuck off. But it had been days since she'd seen him. In that time he'd finished cleaning her apartment. He'd even neatly piled the splintered wood of her furniture in a corner, like a campfire waiting to be lit. She owed it to him to be nice.

 _I can muster nice, can't I?_

Jessica trudged from her bed, still clad in her jeans and button up.

"What?" she croaked, the door between them still closed.

"Wow. I thought I heard you were home. Where have you been?"

He sounded genuinely concerned and Jessica couldn't help but smirk. She quickly let her face fall flat again, back to her nearly permanent state of disinterest as she allowed Malcolm to step inside.

For a second she thought he would hug her, relief colouring his eyes. But he knew better of it and went straight for the kitchen.

A second later he came out of the room with a water bottle and a beer.

She chuckled. "You bought me beer?"

She hadn't checked the fridge. After leaving Matt she'd come straight there, straight to her bed.

Malcolm shrugged. "Don't tell my sponsor."

She nodded and then leaned back against the wall. The can of beer cracked open under her steady hands.

How was she so steady after nights of so little sleep and days filled with confusion and chaos?

It was a question with no reasonable answer. Jessica didn't want to think of herself as being so cold, so distant, that those things barely touched her. But looking at Malcolm ringing his hands around the water bottle, waiting for some sign from her that everything was alright, she knew she wouldn't give it. Her hands were steady because she willed them so.

"Are you hurt?" Malcolm suddenly asked her.

Jessica followed his eye line and looked down at her own faded blue jeans. There on the thighs were bright streaks of blood.

It was Matt's. She had wiped her hands off again and again and his spilled blood had made a mess of her pants. She thought it might come out in the wash, if she pre-cleaned them with stain remover. But even the thought of taking such care exhausted her. She knew they were garbage.

"It's not mine."

Mercifully, Malcolm did not ask whose blood it was.

"You got a lot of calls," he told her, after finally opening the water and taking a gulp. "I've been telling prospective clients you're on a case."

Jessica raised an eyebrow.

"Well, saying you were sick... I don't know. That feels like admitting you're too weak to do your job."

"Depends on how sick."

"No, I mean-"

"I know what you mean," she replied, cutting him off.

They'd barely started talking and her beer was nearly gone.

"And what do I care what prospective clients think?" she scoffed.

"Well, when all this is done don't you want things to go back to normal?"

She smiled. "What's normal?"

Malcolm smiled in return. "I don't know. Something other than this."

Jessica took the last sip, the aftertaste sitting heavy on her tongue. "Seems to me this is the normal part. That other shit is just filler."

They stood for like that for far too long. She wanted another beer, but didn't want to ask or order it from him. Yet, her body was too worn to make the short charge to the fridge herself. She was tired.

"You look rough," Malcolm told her when she let out a monstrous yawn.

"Fuck you," she crowed.

"Seriously, Jess. Maybe you should lie down."

"I was," she said flatly. "Then some asshole knocked on my door."

Malcolm scrunched his face, wrinkles of disdain etching his forehead. She couldn't tell who he was mad at: her for being so callous, or himself for always allowing it.

"I'm sorry," she said lightly. The words seemed so foreign that as they echoed back to her ears they almost sounded like a different language.

Malcolm could tell sincerity didn't suit her. He was prepared to let her off the hook.

"No. Don't worry. It's early," he stammered. "Go to bed. I shouldn't have woke you."

As Malcolm made his way to the front door, Jessica blocked his path.

"You didn't wake me," she said. "I can't sleep. I feel like I never sleep."

He nodded. "Me neither."

Twenty minutes later, a new beer finally in her hands, she and Malcolm sat on the floor, backs against opposite walls.

She tells him about Fisk. She tells him Trish is in hiding. She tells him about the team reassembling. And because she needs to tell someone, she lets him in on Matt's plan. Suddenly, the secret felt less heavy as she allowed someone else to shoulder a bit of the load.

"What if Fisk figures it out?" Malcolm asked. "What will your friend do?"

Jessica had been referring to Matt as "a friend of mine." She hadn't uttered the names Matt Murdock or the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. But she knows Malcolm, like Trish before him, has an investigator's nose.

In another life, one free of Kilgrave and drugs, Malcolm could have been a detective or a lawyer, rather than the guy who answers her phone and patches the holes in her drywall.

Malcolm had been there during their fight with The Hand. He had seen Matt at the police station before his supposed death. And Jessica knew that after his resurrection the two had talked, shared, in this very apartment.

Malcolm was smart. Jessica knew what he was asking. It wasn't, what will your friend do? But rather will Matt Murdock kill Wilson Fisk?

Jessica wanted to answer no. She hated the thought of Matt having to feel what she felt as a neck cracked beneath her weight or a car flung from her fingers.

She wanted to answer no, but she couldn't.

"He'll kill him. He'll have to."

Malcolm didn't reply. Jessica read his silence as approval, begrudging approval.

Death was something that never left them and if Malcolm wanted to pretend it had she knew he would need something stronger than water.

"Just promise me something," Jessica began.

"I won't tell anyone," he said, but Jessica didn't need reassurance of that.

"I know," she nodded. "Promise me you won't go anywhere near Wilson Fisk."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The thought of history repeating itself plagued Jessica after Malcolm had left. Mind control and its consequences was a deja vu she couldn't shake.

She stayed in her spot on the floor, letting her body slide to the old, dirty hardwood. The coolness felt good on her cheek as she pressed into the hardness like a stiff mattress.

She knew she wouldn't sleep there, or anywhere, but she couldn't bring herself to get up.

Before Malcolm had closed her door behind himself he'd said, "Thanks for the talk."

She'd only nodded, but she knew what he meant. It felt good to talk about things, even awful things. It felt good to purge.

Jessica stretched out on her back and stared up at the ceiling. She stayed that way for hours, watching the day's sun stream across the room, replaced by dark shadow and then finally the stillness of night.

She hadn't eaten or showered. She hadn't called anyone - not Luke or Colleen or Claire or Danny. She laughed as she thought of Danny. She just couldn't imagine ever needing to call him. But he had been there in the fight with Matt; he had been hurt. And she hadn't checked on him, hadn't inquired about his healing. Instead she lay covered in Matt's blood, eyes wide and body stiff.

Even as she heard the noise just outside her window she didn't move. She knew it wasn't an animal or a particularly strong wind. It was a person slowly but surely climbing up the exterior drainpipe. Or at least that's what she wanted it to be. In her sleep deprived state, she wondered if she was imagining Matt scaling the outside of her apartment to see her. It wouldn't be the first time. But he wouldn't - couldn't - be that stupid.

As Jessica rolled onto her side, the hardwood refusing to hug her hip bone, which jutted sharply and painfully into the parquet, she spied a figure climbing into her window. She sighed.

 _Yep. He's that fucking stupid._

"Hey," Matt offered once his feet hit the ground just behind her desk.

Jessica smiled. "Hey."

Slowly she pulled herself from the floor, her hair matted with sweat to the back of her head. She shook it loose with her fingers.

"Is this visit business or pleasure?" she asked more seductively than either of them were expecting. She couldn't help it. Just seeing him pushed the kiss to the forefront of her mind. And by the way he shifted before her, his weight resting back on his heels as he swayed away from her nervously, she knew it was on his mind as well.

"Good to know I wasn't dreaming," he said, a lazy joke he was hoping would cut the tension.

When Jessica failed to take the bait, failed to laugh along with him, he closed his eyes and pictured his bruised and bloody lips pressed firmly against the pink of her own. Without realizing it, he reached out to steady himself on the desk.

Jessica's voice pierced the sanctity of his memories. "Too bad I'm not dreaming now."

Matt's eyes snapped open. He was confused. He cocked his head to the left inquisitively. It was a habit he'd developed years ago, a way to show people he couldn't see them even when he could. It's was an act, Jessica thought, and it angered her.

"Please tell me you didn't risk our operation for a roll in-"

Matt briskly cut her off. "Of course not." His words had come out shakier than he would have liked, but he hoped that righting himself, standing straight and tall without the aid of her desk, would somehow prove to her that he meant it.

Jessica struggled to her feet. She was tired, not drunk. She wondered if Matt could tell the difference.

"Okay, Spiderman," she cracked while walking to the kitchen. "Why are you climbing up the side of my apartment building?"

She fished another beer can from the fridge. "What if Fisk discovers you're gone? Or maybe he already has." She pulled the can open, a crisp crack echoing off the sparse walls. "There could be a guy on the corner right now, a guy who followed you from the condo and who now knows we're working together."

Jessica tilted her head back and let the cold liquid shoot down her throat. Gulp after gulp, she swallowed the contents whole before crushing the can in her hand and then tossing it in the sink.

"No one followed me," he told her.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" she shouted.

"Jessica-" he began, but she cut him off.

"You said you had a plan. A plan to infiltrate Fisk's operation. And, what, a day later you're already fucking it up?"

"It's been more than a day," he reminded her.

She rushed him then, her hands reaching out for the lapels of his blazer. As her fingers roughly snaked around the fabric, she pulled him close, staring straight into the dark red of his sunglasses. But when she caught sight of herself in the reflection, she let her head fall, her vision now locked on her own hands, the knuckles turning white against the grey of his suit.

 _It's after midnight and he's wearing a suit. Of course,_ she thought to herself. The ridiculousness of everything that was happening, everything passing between them, forced her to let go and step back. The ridiculousness of it all had ended her anger almost as quickly as it had arisen.

Matt exhaled loudly.

"Nice suit," Jessica said, just as his sigh subsided.

Matt shook his head. "A gift from Wilson Fisk. For the past three days there's been a suit waiting in the closet for me. Perfectly tailored."

"Well, that's not creepy at all," Jessica replied.

Matt adjusted the fabric, pressing it smooth over the muscles of his chest. Then he leaned against the desk, no longer shaky, but rather tired - just like her. When he shifted to the edge, Jessica could tell he was inviting her to join him, and so she pressed her form against his own to sit by his side.

"I woke up and all I could think about was last night," Matt said. He brought his hand to his forehead, letting his fingers play across the wound. "And not just because of what happened… but what didn't happen."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I should have told you about Fisk."

"We've covered that. You made a split second decision to follow him and-"

Matt interrupted her. "No, not that. I should have told you he knew you and Danny were following him the other day."

"Of course," she groaned. "The great Iron Ass strikes again."

Matt smiled. "Well, if it's any consolation, I think Fisk would have found you sooner or later. He's been giving me tests. First, he wanted me to bring Foggy to him. Then Karen."

"Trish?" Jessica asked, her eyes suddenly wide with fear.

Matt shook his head no. "I told Fisk that Foggy wasn't there, wasn't at Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz. I don't know if he investigated any further on his own. I think he just wanted to see if I would do it."

"To see if the mind control was working," Jessica offered, finishing Matt's train of thought.

"If anything, Danny being terrible at surveillance actually helped me. We were on our way to the New York Bulletin when he was spotted by Fisk's men."

"And since Karen doesn't know you're alive…"

"I can't ask her to get out of town."

Matt could smell his own blood in the air. He knew it would be faint to most, but his heightened senses made the odour overwhelming. Looking down at Jessica's jeans he could make out the dark rust coloured stains against the faded denim. It was over 24 hours later, and she was still covered in the remains of their fight. He wondered why.

"I can tell her," Jessica said softly. "If you want."

Matt had been distracted by her disheveled state, by the thought that she'd spent the night on the floor drinking beer and absentmindedly playing with the stained front of her jeans. It took him a moment to register that she was speaking again.

"What?" he asked, his eyes still trained on her pants.

Jessica followed his gaze. She wanted to be embarrassed by the fact that she hadn't changed, haven't even showered since she'd seen him last, but that simply wasn't her. She wasn't like other girls, other people.

"Is this bothering you?" she questioned, her pale hand running along the dark, hard stain.

Matt swallowed hard. He couldn't explain to her why he was entranced by everything she was. Finally, he sighed. "I don't think you should tell her. I appreciate the offer, but it's probably time I face her, face my mistakes."

They were talking about Karen again. _Fuck,_ Jessica thought. _Why did I offer? What am I doing?_

"They're numerous," Matt said quietly.

Jessica knew he meant his mistakes - his mistakes were numerous. She had no reply. She knew he was right. They both had made a mess of things and, in Matt's case, a woman like Karen Page would be quick to point out all the ways he could or should have done things.

Maybe that's why he had been putting off contacting her. Maybe it wasn't about keeping her safe, but rather keeping the heroic image of the Devil of Hell's Kitchen intact.

For a moment, Jessica wondered if she should tell him about the last time she saw Karen, the night at the police station when word of his "death" made its way through the halls. Did he need to know how she grieved him, how she cried? Would that change things? Did she want it to change things?

"Anyway, that's not why I came here," Matt said, snapping Jessica back to reality. "Vanessa's back with Fisk."

"Vanessa?" Jessica asked. "The middle-aged model who makes his deliveries."

Matt nodded. "She's an art dealer. At least she was. Last I heard, he'd ushered her out of the country. Now she's back and I think she's about to get more involved in this."

"A partner?" Jessica mused.

"Someone has been dosing Fisk, someone gave him Kilgrave's power while he was still in prison."

"Well, I think we already figured that part out, right?" Jessica cracked. "Unless New York's finest just let crime syndicate bosses walk in and out as they please."

"Okay, but who had the ability to get in and out of prison, no questions asked?"

"Anyone can visit."

Matt shook his head no. "Fisk had no contact visits. They were all done through bulletproof glass. But I heard Fisk tell Vanessa that it was a lawyer. His lawyer would be allowed unfettered access in a special visitor room. A room guards wouldn't be allowed to monitor due to attorney client privilege. Only they would be able to get close enough to give him a shot of-"

"Kilgrave blood?" Jessica questioned. The thought was disturbing, but she couldn't stop her mind from going there. After seeing the hand in the Scientist's makeshift lab she knew whatever experiments Fisk was involved in had taken pieces of her enemy, of the man she had killed.

For a split second, Jessica wondered if it was worth it. Had his death actually brought more harm? But as quickly as that line of thinking began Jessica shut it down, clasping her mental doubt within the steel safe she kept tucked in the back her mind. She had resolved long ago that Kilgrave's death was the best choice; his murder at her hands the best thing she'd ever done.

Suddenly, she caught Matt looking at her sideways, his eyebrow arched above the rim of his red glasses. "Let's say concoction or mind control juice or anything but blood, okay?"

Jessica smiled. "Okay."

"The lawyer wasn't his lawyer," Matt continued.

"Yeah, I figured," she told him. "So, some strange man comes to him, gives him the… concoction and then Fisk walks out of prison. And now Vanessa is delivering packages all over Manhattan. So he's trying to make his own juice. He's trying to get out from under his new masters."

Matt let his mouth fall open, just a touch, but Jessica couldn't help but reel in the victory. She pushed off the desk and walked to the opposite wall to face him.

"Oh, come on. It's not that big a leap. And it explains the shitty warehouse set up. They couldn't spend money on a lab that might have to move at a moment's notice. It also explains the Scientist's death. Fisk would have programmed his lackeys to kill themselves without hesitation. They're expendable if he has more just like him all over town."

"Huh," Matt said.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just I came here to tell you…"

"You wanted to be the one to figure it out," Jessica replied. "Don't worry. We still have a slew of crazed doctors and scientists experimenting on Kilgrave's body parts. Not to mention we need the identity of the man who originally dosed Fisk."

"That's not it," Matt chuckled. "I came her to tell you that things are about to get serious."

"Because before it was simple."

"No, but everything I know I heard in one conversation tonight. That's all it took to figure out at least 50% of what's going on," Matt said. "I can't leave yet. In fact, I'll probably have to go deeper. I just didn't want you to worry if you don't hear from me after this, at least not for a while."

Jessica stepped toward him. "First, of course you're not done after two nights. What kind of undercover job ends just as it starts? Second, I applaud your optimism, but 50% is laughable. And third, I'm not worried about you, Murdock. So, go deep. I give you permission to get right up Fisk's ass to figure this thing out."

Matt cringed at her choice of words.

"I'll stay on Vanessa," she told him. "Me and the super friends can start looking into the places she makes her deliveries."

"And I'll figure out the origins of the…"

"Concoction, remember?"

Matt nodded in the affirmative. "And the others? What do we tell them?"

Jessica stepped forward again, her face taking over the whole of his view.

"Strange. I was just thinking about that," she told him. "Would you be offended if I let them continue to believe you're a mindless stooge?" She smiled, "Oh, and that you're also under Fisk's control?"

"Cute," he replied, his mouth slowly mirroring the curve of her own. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Make even the worst situation seem bearable."

Jessica felt her chest tighten, her breath stuck inside her throat, caught on a sense of nervousness she didn't know she possessed.

Matt could hear her heartbeat quicken. He couldn't help but lean forward, closing the small space between them until it felt almost nonexistent.

He reached out and touched her dark hair, his fingers wrapping softly around the strands that lay over her shoulder. They were still slightly sticky, a sheen of light sweat covering everything. For the first time since arriving, Matt allowed himself to take in the scent of her. A mixture of that sweet sweat, cheap beer, and the remnants of men's deodorant. He wondered who's deodorant it was, who had been there before him, left something of themself behind for her to wear day in and day out.

As he ran the strand of her hair between his finger, rolling it back and forth, Jessica suddenly pulled away. The hair slipped out of his grasp. She came to rest again on the wall.

"I think you should leave," she told him softly, even though she didn't really want him to go.

Matt sighed. "But I haven't told you the worst part."

Jessica raised an eyebrow.

"Fisk told Vanessa that once he makes his new mind control ability permanent, well, then there will be no one he can't manipulate… including her. So, in order to ensure that doesn't happen they need a cure, an immunity."

"They need me."

"I'm sorry."

"Why? We knew this was going to happen. It's why he took Trish, it's why the Scientist took a sample of my blood, it's probably why his goons broke in here, and I'd wager it's one of the main reasons he's controlling you right now."

Jessica walked back to the fridge, even though she knew she'd already consumed the last beer. She rummaged through the half empty condiment bottles and leftover Chinese containers until her fingers settled on a nearly empty bottle of Cutty Sark.

"There you are," she whispered.

"It's okay to be scared," Matt told her, walking steadily to the tiny kitchen, his hands resting on the still open door of the fridge.

Jessica laughed, before turning the top off the bottle and taking a swig.

"I'm not scared. You are," she replied. "You're worried about my safety, and you want me to be worried about yours. But I can't do my job that way."

"Your job?"

"Yeah, you know, investigate people, find clues, put bad guys away. I can't do that and worry about anyone, least of all myself."

"You worry about Trish," he told her, as she let the last swish of scotch coat her throat.

"Well, when you've been there for me like she has, maybe you'll make the list, too."

Matt nodded, closing the fridge door to allow her escape from the room. As she brushed past him, the smell of blended booze wafted in the air.

"You really know how to ruin a moment, don't you?"

Jessica whipped around to face him. "This wasn't a moment. You don't get to crawl through my window, stroke my hair, and then tell me I might die. That's not how this works."

"It is in my world," he told her. The tone of his voice was serious, but the thought broke through her resolve.

"Yeah, I know it is," she told him playfully.

They stood staring at each other for far too long, bathing in the silence of her small, scarred apartment. Matt reached out once again, but not for her hair - instead her took her hand gently in his own.

"Well, I'm the worrying kind," he whispered. "So, if it's all the same to you, I'm going to care about what happens to the tough, determined Jessica Jones."

Jessica squeezed his hand, just once, before pulling her fingers from his own. But she knew he'd felt it, felt her silent permission for him to worry about her. She was letting him in inch by inch, day by day.

Matt walked past her to the window, ducking under the opened upper pane and making his way back into the night sky.

As he was preparing to leap over to the drainpipe and out of sight, Jessica called after him.

"You said only a lawyer could get in to see Fisk."

Matt peered back into the apartment. She was standing in the centre of the room, still covered in his blood, her speech drenched in alcohol, her eyes glistening with the bright light of an epiphany coming into form.

"It just so happens I know one of the most well-connected lawyers in town. And she knows all about Kilgrave."


	30. Act Thirty

"I said sugar-free vanilla. Sugar-free. How many times do I have to tell you?"

The petite blonde winced as the hot coffee cup was thrust back into her hands. Liquid sloshed out of the tiny upper opening, splashing onto the cuff of her white silk shirt. A permanent stain, for sure.

"The reason I need you here when I arrive is to give me my coffee, to properly caffeinate me for the day. But you can't seem to get that right. If you're going to be the first person I see, you need to serve a purpose. Right now, you're nothing. I'm going to be in my office in five minutes, and there better be a fucking sugar-free vanilla coffee with just a touch of almond milk waiting on my desk. Understand?"

"I can't- I don't-"

"Stop thinking. Start doing."

The blonde nodded then rushed across the street, traffic screeching to a halt around her, the discarded coffee cup still clutched nervously in her hand.

"Ten bucks says she still gets the order wrong," Jessica Jones quipped from her perch on the thick stone railing leading into the offices of Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz. She sat on one heavy boot clad foot, while the other hung off the edge, listing back and forth.

"It's not that hard," Jeri Hogarth reply, seemingly indifferent to Jessica's sudden appearance. "She should be thankful I hired her during a liquid cleanse. Imagine if she had to fetch me breakfast."

Jessica arched her eyebrow as Jeri ascended the stairs towards her. "I thought you would be happier to see me, Hogarth, considering how hard you've been looking for me."

Just hours before, when Jessica came to her epiphany, Matt Murdock had laid out what happened in the underground parking garage of Hogarth's firm. Jessica could tell it was a story he didn't want to share, given his assault of the two guards and the further threat on her own safety, but it all had to be said. It was another piece of the puzzle slowly forming before them.

If Hogarth was looking for the team, then it stood to reason that Jessica's hypothesis about her involvement in Fisk's blossoming criminal undertakings - thanks to mind control - was on the right track. Even if Fisk had said it was a male lawyer who came to see him, Jessica knew Hogarth had a way of making people do and say whatever she pleased. Looking out over the traffic, into the tight crowd on the other side of the street, Jessica spied the blonde assistant through a large coffee shop window waiting anxiously in a long line for the drink that might save her job.

 _Yeah_ , Jessica thought, _Jeri Hogarth has to be a part of this._

"I haven't been looking for you," Hogarth replied, once they were eye to eye. Jessica failed to get up, instead slouching back against the cool brick building and sighing. She wanted Hogarth to know how bored she was with her lies.

"See, I almost believe you. I mean, I was in my apartment all night. So, if you had ordered someone to find me, say yesterday, and gave them an - oh, I don't know - 12 hour deadline, well, then they would be pretty shit at their job, huh?"

Hogarth didn't blink, but Jessica knew she was rattling her. She wondered if the lawyer would sweep the building for electronic listening devices as soon as she left. Maybe even increase security for the second time in less than 24 hours.

Jessica had been to Hogarth's office before, and while there were always men with guns around - the cost of doing business with some of the city's wealthiest, yet sleaziest clientele - there seemed to an influx of guys wearing black suits and sporting earpieces.

It was Matt's doing, of course.

Jeri leaned in, breaking through Jessica's observations. "What are you doing here, Jessica?"

"You might want to back up before someone gets hurt," Jessica replied, motioning to the man who was waiting for Hogarth at the door, trying to conceal the bulge of his weapon beneath his blazer so as not to scare any incoming clients.

"Guys like that protect me," Hogarth told her.

"I know," Jessica whispered, finally pressing herself off the rail, standing just inches from her former employer. Jessica's breath was hot on Hogarth's ear. "So, don't make me have to do something you're going to regret."

Hogarth gripped her briefcase tightly, the sound of leather squeaked against the sweat in her clenched palm.

"Now invite me into your office. We have things to talk about."

Hogarth let out an exaggerated sigh, before turning on her thousand dollar high heels and heading for the front door. Jessica followed.

Before security could even ask, Hogarth waved her free hand in the air and said, "Everything's alright. She's with me."

"She needs to sign in," one of the guards said, his hand hovering just above his belt, his eyes squinting against the morning sun as it pierced through the window and flooded the lobby.

He looked like a better dressed cowboy from those western movies Jessica fell asleep to late at night - well, before she had smashed her TV in a fit of rage. She couldn't remember why she had been so angry. Maybe it had been over Luke, or Matt, or Kilgrave. Or maybe she was just out of whiskey and so the cowboy had to go. Either way, she knew if the man before her actually reached for his gun he would find himself broken and on the floor, just like that old TV.

"I'll sign," Hogarth said, cutting between Jessica and the guard. She quickly scribbled something illegible on the paper, then grabbed Jessica by the elbow and ushered her to the elevator.

"You know, for a woman who makes threats as easily as you do, you seem awful scared right now," Jessica said, once there were out of earshot of anyone who would dare to eavesdrop.

"Things are different around here," Hogarth told her in a hushed, hurried tone.

"Yeah, I can see that."

The elevator dinged as it finally came to the first floor, and Hogarth quickly got on. Once inside, her shoulders lowered and Jessica watched as she released a breath neither realized she'd been holding.

"I was looking for you," Hogarth said, again her voice was low, her lips barely moving.

"Well, here I am."

"I see that, but why?"

"I think we should talk about this in your office."

Hogarth reached forward and pulled the stop control on the elevator, forcing it to jerk violently into place.

"What the fuck, Hogarth?" Jessica yelped.

"We are about to get off on my floor, a floor littered with more of those guys and their guns. So, you tell me right now what kind of shit you plan to pull up there, okay?"

Jessica smiled. "I'm not going to go all Rambo on them, if that's what you mean."

Hogarth nodded, seemingly believing her.

"I just want to have little chat about Wilson Fisk."

Hogarth didn't reply, but unlike their confrontation outside, she was finally showing her hand. Jessica knew she was on to something.

"Someone visited him in prison, and then a few days later he just walked out the front door. Now he's looking for me. And you're looking for me. So, it got me thinking-"

"We can't talk about this here," Hogarth told her, as she pushed the stop button again. The elevator whirred back to life and continued it's ascent.

Jessica rolled her eyes, but when the doors opened she followed Hogarth's lead down a short hallway, past a parade of people staring at her, and into the office.

Hogarth moved to her desk, placing her briefcase down before sliding her black pea coat off. She hung it smoothly on the coat rack by the door to her private bathroom, and then began turning on her company laptop.

Jessica loudly cleared her throat, the sound ricocheting off the beige walls. "Can we talk in here, or do you want to go to the roof?" she asked sarcastically.

Hogarth sat down and motioned for Jessica to do the same. Jessica declined with a shrug.

"Fine," Hogarth began. "My partners have been trying to push me out for a while now. No surprise, given that I don't have a dick and I refuse to play by their silly fucking rules."

"Uh, isn't one of your partners a woman?"

"Grow up, Jessica," Hogarth snapped. "I've known women with bigger dicks than any man you've drunkenly bedded."

Hogarth's in-office phone rang. Without looking, she pressed a button that made the noise stop, punctuated by a tiny, red, flashing light.

"I was looking for you because I heard Mr. Fisk was out. And given everything you, Luke Cage, Danny Rand," Hogarth stopped herself, her eyes lowering, "and Matt Murdock went through with The Hand I figured you might need some assistance."

"Assistance? From you?" Jessica asked, ignoring how Hogarth was certain her team included those members.

She had once overheard Colleen and Danny talking about a "Jeri" but since nothing Danny said was ever of any interest to her, Jessica had ignored the connection. Hogarth, of course, knew about Luke. There were times Jessica wondered who didn't know about Luke and the tether that still existed between them. And Matt… Jessica wasn't sure if Hogarth had simply put two and two together - the lawyer who died on the day Midland Circle came down - but it didn't matter. With her head slightly bowed, Jessica knew Hogarth was attempting to sympathize with her loss. So, even if everyone knew Matt was once on her team, most were still unaware of his resurrection from the dead.

"What kind of assistance could you offer?" Jessica continued.

"Did you know Wilson Fisk had friends among the ranks of The Hand?" Hogarth asked, her eyes now locked on Jessica's once again.

"Yeah, I figured that one out." She hadn't, of course. At least not on her own. It had been a morsel of information Fisk himself had provided. Sometimes it felt as if everyone wanted her to solve the problem, capture the bad guy, and save the day. But she just couldn't get there, couldn't come through for the people of New York... for Trish... for Matt.

"And you know The Hand was experimenting with altering the aging process, with trying to stop death."

Jessica nodded. They hadn't just been experimenting, they'd succeeded, she thought, remembering everything she'd seen with Alexandra and Elektra.

"You were right. Someone from my firm did visit Mr. Fisk in prison… shortly before he was released."

"Released?" Jessica cracked. "Is that what you're calling it?"

"Look, I wanted you found so I could give you something. I used an off-the-books contact."

"Well, he screwed you, because like I said, I haven't been hard to find."

Hogarth opened the top drawer of her mahogany desk. "I know that now. The asshole ran off with a grand of my money."

"A grand! Jesus, Hogarth. Why didn't you just call me?"

The sound of pens, a stapler, and sheets of paper floated from the drawer as Hogarth rummaged about the contents. Finally, she pulled a compact from the space in back and tossed it to Jessica.

"I couldn't call you. There are people watching me and I didn't want anyone to know we were still speaking. But then you showed up today and… well, you fucked that all up."

Jessica popped open the small, light blue compact to reveal the pale beige power. "Almost my colour." Knowing there was more than meets the eye, Jessica pushed the plastic disk holding the powder to the side, revealing the secret compartment for a small, flat USB key.

Suddenly, the door to Hogarth's office whipped open and her blonde assistant stepped inside. She was panting, a coffee cup clutched in her right hand.

"I said five minutes!" Hogarth barked.

The woman looked at Jessica, perhaps hoping for an ally, but instead Jessica shrugged. She knew jobs were often hard to come by, but anyone who let Jeri Hogarth repeatedly talk to them that way deserved what they got.

The blonde rushed forward, placing the coffee cup on the desk before scurrying back out again.

Hogarth took the coffee from it's perch near the outer edge of her desk and walked it to the bathroom. She dumped the contents down the drain then set the empty cup in the sink, letting a stream of cold water soak the wax coated paper.

"What are you doing?" Jessica asked. "That woman hates you, no doubt, but I don't think she's trying to poison you."

Hogarth didn't reply. She simply turned off the water and walked back to her desk. Jessica hadn't seen Hogarth this paranoid since well before Kilgrave's death. It wasn't a good look on her. For the first time since she arrived, Jessica noticed the dark shadow beneath Hogarth's eyes, the stiffness in her neck, the shakiness of her hands.

"That's all I have for you," Hogarth told her. It was her way of saying their _meeting_ was over.

"That's it? You try to track me and my-" Jessica stopped herself, the word salty on her tongue, "-friends down to give us a USB? Bullshit, Hogarth. Talking about The Hand, about all their fucking experiments. You're trying to tell me they're doing the same thing with Kilgrave, aren't you?"

"Just read what I gave you."

"You're trying to tell me that your firm gave Wilson Fisk something, gave him Kilgrave's abilities. What? And you found out, so now they're trying to get rid of you? Is that it?"

Hogarth walked toward Jessica. "Just read what I gave you."

"Dammit, Hogarth," Jessica shouted. "I don't work for you anymore."

"And I never worked for you," she reminded the younger woman. "Read it."

Jessica closed the compact and stuffed it into one of the pockets on her leather jacket, one with a zipper. She didn't want to lose what could be the only piece of hard evidence they had. Although, knowing Hogarth as she did, Jessica couldn't be sure she wasn't leaving with a USB drive full of Gotcha memes or pictures of kittens.

 _Fuck_ , Jessica thought. _This isn't going how I planned. But what does anymore?_

Hogarth reached for the handle of her office door, but stopped before tuning it open. "I wrote a code word on the sign-in sheet downstairs. You showing up here really forced my hand, Jessica, and I had to let them know I was still on their side. I thought it was the only way I could get that information to you. The code word let them know I was taking you in here for five minutes, no more. Five minutes to learn everything I could about your investigation into Wilson Fisk, into this firm."

Jessica watched as Hogarth's hand gripped then released the door handle, as if she were debating with herself on whether to open it or not.

"Sometimes I wish you were more discreet. Everyone knows what you and your team are doing. You've been leaving too much wreckage behind for it to go unnoticed. Danny's deep dive into Mr. Fisk's financials sent up a red flag. I can use it, tell them you came here asking about Wilson Fisk and looking for help accessing more documents. I won't mention The Hand, and I certainly won't tell them you have any idea the firm is involved."

Jessica and Hogarth held each other's gaze. Hogarth's eyes were glassy. Jessica wondered if the paranoia was just making her tired or if the fear was real.

"I'm asking you, not as an employer, not as a friend, but as someone who's been in the trenches with you to please tread lightly with what you have there. My lies to the firm won't hold long, but the harder you kick down the door this presents you the easier it will be for them to trace it back to me."

Jessica nodded. She understood. Hogarth would tell her partners that Jessica Jones, the great private eye, had been played. It would buy Jessica and her team time. And it would, hopefully, keep Hogarth safe. It was a measure of the assistance Hogarth said she could provide.

"How do you know they're not listening? That they don't have your office bugged?" Jessica asked.

"I use a scrambler, I sweep the room daily, and I drench coffee cups provided by my shitty assistant in the sink just in case."

Jessica smiled. Sometimes Hogarth was good.

"So, when you open this door I'm going to have to fight my way out, aren't I?"

"Yeah," Hogarth replied. "I'm sorry."

"There better be something on this," Jessica told her, patting the jacket pocket that held the compact.

"Believe me, there is."

With that, Hogarth opened the door to her office revealing three suited guards, each with their handguns drawn.

Hogarth stepped back into her bathroom, immediately extracting herself from the line of fire. When Jessica heard the door close behind her, she felt safe to engage.

"Do you guys validate parking?" Jessica quipped. "No? That's okay. I don't drive. I do jump really high, though."

Jessica leapt up, her fist extended. She punched through the ceiling with ease, but instead of pushing herself all the way through to the next floor, she grabbed the plaster, insulation and wires that were within reach and pulled them down upon her aggressors. As the three men stepped back, their view obscured by drywall dust, Jessica picked up an errant piece of ceiling and whipped it at the man on her left. As it hit him, he fired his gun into the leg of the man in the middle.

Jessica rushed out of Hogarth's office, her full force connecting with the third man. He flew backwards into the desk of the blonde assistant. Jessica could hear her scream, but couldn't see her. She assumed the woman was hiding under the desk questioning herself on where it all went wrong.

As the men collected themselves, Jessica ran toward the elevator. She could see it was moving up, floor by floor. Having found herself in an office tower fight more than once before, she was sure the elevator would be filled with more men and more guns, so she made a mad dash for the stairs.

A few floors down, she realized no one was following her. Had Hogarth lied about using a code word on the sign-in sheet? Had she always planned on cornering Jessica in her office for a fight?

 _No,_ Jessica thought. Hogarth was smart enough to know Jessica Jones would win any fight against a bunch of hired help. They must have stopped following her because they were focused on Hogarth.

As Jessica reached the lobby, she darted across the marble tile and to the front door. For good measure, she made sure to punch the man waiting by the door - the faux cowboy. Her fist connected with the left side of his face, a satisfying crunch filling the air.

On the street, her boots heavily clacking against the sidewalk as she ran from the office, Jessica hoped Hogarth was true to her word. She hoped her former employer would be able to keep the likes of Chao and Benowitz at bay with her choreographed lies.

XXXXXXXXX

"Where have you been?" Luke Cage asked as Jessica bolted into the safe house, panting and holding her side. Being super strong sadly failed to make her super in shape.

"My apartment," Jessica told him. "Seriously, where do you guys go when you're looking for me?"

"The bars," Claire said from her spot on the couch.

Jessica shrugged. _Good answer_ , she thought.

"Where's Colleen and the Iron Idiot?" Jessica asked.

"Right here," Colleen replied as she and Danny stepped from the backroom. Danny was wearing the makeshift cast Claire had made him. The white bandages wrapped around his wrist and over his thumb, setting his hand in place.

For a few hours there Jessica had forgotten about her fight with Matt on the roof. She had forgotten how Danny had rushed in, his heroics on full display. She had forgotten he was a good fighter, a good guy, and a good teammate.

"Hey, sorry about that," Jessica told him as he came fully into view.

"Iron Idiot is the least offensive of your chosen nicknames," Danny told her. "Don't worry about it."

"No, not that," Jessica said, reaching out for his bandaged hand. She stopped herself from touching it, from getting closer to him - or anyone - than she needed to be. "I'm sorry about your hand."

The look on Danny's face said it all, and the silence in the room confirmed it - sometimes she was a terrible person, a terrible teammate. So much so that a simple act of kindness was almost completely foreign to those around her.

She let them marinate in her apology for a minute more before continuing. "Anyway, I've got news."

"You found Matt?" Claire asked.

"No," Jessica lied. The agreement she and Matt had made earlier that morning, just before he left her apartment, still stood. She wouldn't tell anyone he was working undercover, she wouldn't tell them she had seen him at all.

"But I did some digging," Jessica went on, stepping past Danny, careful not to touch his injured hand. She found a spot on the wall opposite the couch and leaned back, her shoulder blades etching out a spot of comfort. "Fisk got his power while he was in prison, that much we can guess. And who gets to visit prisoners without supervision?"

"Lawyers," Colleen said.

Jessica nodded. "So, I went to the scummiest, most underhanded and well-connected lawyer I know. Jeri Hogarth."

"Is she okay?" Danny asked, the worry in his voice palpable.

Jessica followed his eyes to her own fists, dirtied by their time in the ceiling of Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz, and spotted with the blood of the man guarding the front door.

"Fuck, Rand. I didn't beat her for information or anything."

The group stayed silent, staring at her.

"I swear. She's fine," Jessica assured them. "In fact, she's been trying to find me… us. She wants to help. She promised to keep her lawyer friends off our back for a bit by telling them we know nothing - or close to nothing. Meanwhile, she gave us this."

Jessica fished the compact from her jacket pocket and tossed it across the room to Colleen, who looked at it curiously.

"Got a laptop?" Jessica asked.

Colleen smiled, opening up the compact and then the secret compartment.

A few minutes later, they were all huddled around Colleen's laptop. Luke and Claire sat on the couch, Colleen on the floor, her delicate fingers on the mousepad, navigating the contents of the USB. Jessica and Danny stood in the back. From the corner of her eye, Jessica could see him watching her. She turned to meet his gaze.

Looking down at his hand again, the partial loss of his strength, of his usefulness, struck her once more. She's the one who had made him go with her to the roof. She had been adamant they follow Matt, no matter the risk. And thinking back on it, Jessica was sure that Danny had been protecting her during that fight. He had been doing the work she was hesitant to do.

 _I'm sorry_ , Jessica mouthed to him, but before he could respond Colleen's voice cut through the stillness of the room.

"Whoa."

"What is it?" Claire asked, leaning closer to the laptop.

"I think these are medical files," Colleen told her.

Claire slipped from the couch, finding a spot next to Colleen. The laptop was perched on the coffee table before them. "Let me see that," she said.

Claire began reading the documents, quickly scanning each page. A flurry of pictures briefly took over the screen. To Jessica, they seemed to be shots of patients, men who looked sick, almost dead.

"Are you going to share with the rest of the class?" Jessica finally asked, as Claire clicked on another file.

"Yeah," Claire said. "Colleen's right, these are medical files."

"For who?" Luke asked.

"There's six total. They don't have names, just numbers," Claire told him. "But that's not the interesting part. This folder," she said as she opened it, "are logs from some sort of experiment. Each number is represented next to an amount."

"Money?" Danny questioned.

"No, milligrams," Claire replied, her finger hovering over the screen. "See here? This is the first patient. He was given dose after dose of something, each time a bit more."

"The concoction," Jessica said, forgetting it was the new word she and Matt had agreed to use to describe the serum that gave Fisk his new-found abilities.

"Sure, yeah," Claire nodded. "All six of them were given the stuff, or given something."

"Great," Jessica sighed. "We thought Wilson Fisk was bad, but it turns out we have a half dozen more mind controlling weirdos roaming the streets."

"No, we don't," Claire told her. She opened the last folder and the screen filled with an image of one of the patients. He was clearly dead, his grey skin thin and sagging, his face forever contorted in pain.

"They're all dead," Luke said. Claire nodded. "From the… concoction?"

"Looks like it," Claire said.

"I don't understand," Colleen told the group, taking control of the mousepad back so she could scroll through the information herself. "Is this what will happen to Fisk?"

"I fucking hope so," Jessica blurted out.

"I don't know. These guys died pretty quick," Claire said.

"Oh god," Colleen gasped.

She opened the photograph of an attractive man with dark hair and tanned skin. He was staring at the camera, a determined look in his eyes. Jessica wondered what he had been told before becoming a guinea pig in some science experiment. Was it willing? Was he promised God-like powers?

But before she could posit any theories aloud, Colleen opened the morgue photo. The side by side of Patient NY-4 was startling. His death face was so disturbing Danny had to look away. The sunken hollows around his eyes were what captured Jessica. It looked as if he had been awake for a year, and starved of any food or water for at least half that time.

"These pictures were taken seven days apart," Colleen revealed.

"What?" Danny cried. "A week."

"How long have we been tracking Fisk?" Luke wondered.

"Long enough that he should look at little less round in the centre by now," Jessica told him.

"So, maybe he's not being given what these guys were," Colleen suggested, her eyes locked on the images on the laptop screen.

"Or The Hand finally found someone who could take it, someone as strong as Kilgrave," Jessica replied.

"The Hand?" Danny croaked.

"We knew that was a possibility, Danny," Luke told him, reaching out for the arm of his partner, his friend. But Danny pulled away.

"We don't know for sure it's them. I mean, there's no one left, right? They're all under Midland Circle," Danny said.

"We thought Matt was under Midland Circle," Jessica reminded him. "Besides, Hogarth made me remember what they're capable of. She practically told me they're behind this."

Danny shook his head from side to side. He didn't want to believe his old enemy had returned. But to Jessica it seemed fitting. Her enemy had returned: Kilgrave. Matt's enemy had returned: Fisk. Why couldn't it be true that The Hand was regrouping?

"I have to run an errand," Jessica suddenly blurted out.

"What?" Luke asked, his eyes wide.

"Colleen, Claire, I need you to look over those files for any identifying details. We need to know the names of these men. If we can figure out who they were, maybe we can figure out why they were chosen. That could rule The Hand in or out as a suspect, okay?" The last part was directed at Danny. She wanted him to feel they were investigating - despite the fact that Jessica had made up her mind about The Hand's involvement before she'd even left Hogarth's office.

"We're on it," Colleen told her.

Jessica strode to the door, Luke in hot pursuit.

"Where are you going?"

"I told you, I have something to do."

He followed her out into the hall. Once again, Jessica was leaving them all behind. This time it felt different, this time she was stained with guilt.

"Do you know where Matt is?" he asked her, the door closing behind him.

Jessica didn't want to lie to Luke. Yes, she had promised Matt they would keep it a secret, but she knew that promise was built of her own fear. A fear that everyone would find out it was her that was pressuring him to stay undercover. But she lied anyway. "No, I just have some things to take care of."

"You'll be careful?"

Jessica looked into his eyes and saw the concern. "Of course."

"Yeah, yeah. That's what you say every time, but somehow someone always gets hurt."

Jessica smiled. "As long as that someone isn't me," she quipped as she marched down the stairs and away from the apartment.

Luke leaned over the railing and called after her. "Or us, Jess. Try not to hurt any of us."


End file.
